Detroit Red Wings in Playoff Chase Thanks to Dylan Larkin

The Red Wings captain has been a loyal member of the roster throughout the team"s rebuild. Larkin was drafted by the team out of the University of Michigan 15th overall in the 2015 NHL entry draft. Larkin scored a career-high 32 goals in 76 games played during the 2018-19 season. The argument against giving Larkin the large contract that he is seeking is that he is a negative defensive player. It doesn’t matter how many goals Larkin scores if the team gives up more goals when he is on the ice.

The 2022-23 season was the first season that general manager Steve Yzerman put the team in a position to make it to the Stanley Cup playoffs. Multiple hand injuries for Tyler Bertuzzi and Jakub Vrana entering the player assistance program were circumstances that no one could have seen coming. Bertuzzi has been playing well of late after coming back from the second-hand injury of this season and Vrana will draw back into the lineup for the Red Wings soon. These lineup changes are something that is out of Larkin’s control.

Larkin has played particularly well as the Red Wings season sits on a knife edge. During a recent west-coast swing he scored six goals and added five assists in five games. If not for Larkin’s recent strong play, the Red Wings would have fallen out of playoff contention. And yet the team currently sits outside of a wild card spot. Despite Larkin being a talented player and scoring at a torrid pace lately, the team is still looking for a superstar center that can score goals at will. The problem is that these types of players do not grow on trees.

The national hockey media recently got to see Larkin’s play up close. He was the lone representative of the Red Wings at the all-star game in Sunrise, Florida. This was the third time that Larkin was named to the all-star game Despite being perceived as not giving maximum effort in the fastest skater competition, Larkin scored three goals in the final of the all-star game against the central division. This did not go unnoticed by various social media accounts of other NHL teams.

Yzerman felt that Larkin was not ready to be captain of the team before he was chosen in 2021. That is not to say that he did not show leadership on and off the ice. Every time the Red Wings lost Larkin was the first to say that the team needed to play better. Yzerman also knew the tremendous amount of responsibility it took to be named captain of one of the original six teams in the NHL. If he and Larkin do not agree on where the franchise is headed, Larkin has every right to move on as a free agent.

Larkin is in the final year of his current five-year contract. He has certainly played like his looking to earn a big payday after this season. At 26 years old he is looking to maximize the amount of money he will earn in the last big contract of his career. For his part, Larkin has repeatedly said that he wants this contract to be with the Red Wings. If worse comes to worst and Larkin has told Yzerman that he does not intend to re-sign with the Red Wings, Yzerman should trade him at the upcoming trade deadline on March third for whatever the team can get in return.

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