The Wild’s Day 2 makeover gave the front office more to work with, but it didn’t exactly make the Dylan Larkin chase any simpler.
After a rough opening day of free agency, Bill Guerin responded by swinging a trade with Calgary for veterans Blake Coleman and Olli Maatta, then adding former KHL star Maxim Shabanov. It was a sharp pivot from the unease that hung over Minnesota on Day 1, and it showed Guerin is still actively reshaping the roster.
But the bigger question around the Wild hasn’t changed: does any of this help them land a top-line center?
The answer, at least for now, is maybe - but not enough to make anything feel imminent. Minnesota gave up veteran defenseman Jake Middleton and a collection of picks in the Coleman-Maatta deal. Those mid-to-late round selections weren’t the kind of premium assets that usually headline a blockbuster, but they still represented pieces that could have been used in a center trade.
Even so, the Wild don’t sound like a team backing off. Guerin said Thursday, “We remain flexible,” and added, “Right now, we’re just gonna focus on the guys that we’ve got, and we’ll continue to look at everything that’s out there. If there’s something that makes sense that’ll make our team better, we will do it.”
That lines up with what The Athletic’s Michael Russo reported: the Wild “still feel they have the flexibility to pursue a top-line center, specifically Detroit Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin.”
The problem is that Detroit doesn’t appear to be in the same place.
According to Sportsnet’s Nick Kypreos, the Red Wings “just is not interested right now” in the current offers from Minnesota and Vegas. That doesn’t shut the door completely, but it does suggest the Wild would need to push harder if they want to pry loose the three-time All-Star center.
And the ask sounds enormous. Kypreos said, “The Red Wings would have no problem trading Dylan Larkin to Minnesota if the Wild were prepared to part with Matt Boldy,” and added, “Other than Boldy, there is nothing else Detroit GM Steve Yzerman is too interested in.”
Kypreos also noted that the Larkin situation is “not close to a resolution.”
So even after a busy stretch of moves, Minnesota still looks like it’s in the waiting phase. The Wild may have kept themselves in the conversation, but if they’re serious about Larkin, this is shaping up to be a long grind rather than a quick strike.
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