The Minnesota Wild may have a simple reason to stay patient in the Dylan Larkin sweepstakes: they might be the best deal Steve Yzerman gets.
Trade talks between the Wild and Red Wings have been stuck for weeks, with Larkin having asked out during the Stanley Cup Finals and Minnesota clearly interested. But Detroit has not seen a package from Bill Guerin that it likes, and Yzerman has shown no interest in moving one of his most valuable players for less than full value.
That stalemate is exactly why the Wild could benefit from letting the market do some of the work for them. Shayna Goldman of The Athletic pointed out that Detroit is in a tough spot while this drags on.
“As long as the Larkin situation is unresolved, the Red Wings are stuck in limbo,” Goldman wrote. “It all depends on what this team can get back for one of its most valuable players. What challenges the situation more is that Detroit views Larkin as a first-line center, while most contenders are likely looking at him as more of a 2C in their respective lineups.”
That gap in valuation matters. Minnesota needs a center who can play at the top of the lineup, and the Wild have already shown how thin that group can get. Last season, they were one of the NHL’s better teams down the middle with Joel Eriksson Ek, Ryan Hartman and Danila Yurov, but they had to part with their second-round pick to bring in Michael McCarron from the Nashville Predators before the trade deadline.
Then the center situation got even messier. Eriksson Ek was injured in the series-clinching win over the Dallas Stars in the first round, and the Wild’s offense never really recovered. After getting gentleman’s swept by the Colorado Avalanche in the next round, Minnesota came away knowing it needs a true top-line center.
That is where Larkin enters the picture. The problem for Detroit is that Minnesota may be the only team on Larkin’s four-team no-trade list that sees him in that role.
The Vegas Golden Knights already have Jack Eichel there, and the Florida Panthers have Aleksander Barkov. The Dallas Stars, meanwhile, reportedly balked at the idea of moving current top-line center Wyatt Johnston for Larkin and may not be eager to part with Jason Robertson either, with Johnston and Roope Hintz already down the middle.
If that is the landscape, the offers Detroit gets could skew toward future assets rather than players who can help right away. And that could leave Yzerman looking at Minnesota’s proposal as the strongest one on the table.
Goldman also noted that dragging this out has its own cost for Detroit. Yzerman can keep playing hardball, but the delay also freezes whatever else he wants to do with the roster. The Red Wings have signed Viktor Arvidsson, but they still need to re-sign restricted free agent Simon Edvinsson to a long-term deal, possibly bring back Patrick Kane and find a way to improve their five-on-five scoring.
Larkin is under contract for the next five years, and Yzerman could simply tell him to report to training camp. But if he does that and refuses to move on from the status quo, the Red Wings could end up bringing back much of the same group that collapsed and missed the playoffs after sitting tied for first place in the Eastern Conference on January 24.
Yzerman is right to push for the best possible return. But if the best offer turns out to be Minnesota’s, he may eventually have to take it - or risk leaving the roster without the overhaul it needs to get back to the postseason. That gives Guerin a reason to wait and see whether the Wild can land the top-line center they have been chasing all offseason.
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For a team that is always thinking about the long view in goal, the appeal is obvious: he brings a frame that stands out even before the rest of the toolkit comes into focus. The contract gives Minnesota a chance to keep working with him over the next few years, and the real question now is how quickly that raw physical profile can turn into something the Wild can actually count on down the road. [Read more 🡒]