Dylan Larkin is willing to go to more teams than previously reported, and the news landed one week before the Red Wings open their season.
On the 32 Thoughts podcast, Elliotte Friedman said "one of the things I heard about Larkin is that there are more teams that he's willing to go to than what have been reported."
He pointed to Colorado and Washington. He also said he suspects Dallas and Tampa Bay are in the mix, "in case people didn't know them already."
The center didn't dress last night when the Red Wings beat Buffalo 3-2, with Alex DeBrincat scoring the overtime winner.
Nobody in Detroit can blame the production. Larkin scored 34 goals in 74 games last season.
That gives him five straight 30-goal campaigns, the kind of consistency most rebuilding teams spend years trying to draft.
So why are we talking about acceptable destinations at all?
Elliotte Friedman on the 32 Thoughts Podcast about Larkin: ''One of the things I heard about Larkin is that there are more teams that he's willing to go to than what have been reported. [...] I think some of the other teams there are Colorado, Washington, and I suspect, in case people didn't know them already, Dallas & Tampa.'' #GoAvsGo #GoBolts #ALLCAPS #TexasHockey #NHL #LGRW
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Larkin's playoff drought puts Steve Yzerman in a corner
No. 71 has played five career playoff games, and all of them came in 2015-16.
That's ten straight seasons without a playoff game for a player who has given Detroit 808 regular-season games.
He turned 30 in July. His $8,700,000 cap hit runs through 2030-31, which means any team on that list is signing up for five more seasons of it.
Every team on that list already carries big contracts. The Avalanche pay Nathan MacKinnon $12,604,000 and Martin Necas $11,500,000.
The Stars have Mikko Rantanen and Jason Robertson at $12,000,000 apiece, and they're 3-0-0 this preseason under Glen Gulutzan.
Spencer Carbery's Capitals have Alex Tuch at $10,500,000. Jon Cooper's Lightning pay Andrei Vasilevskiy $9,500,000 to stand in their crease.
This is the hockey version of a guy quietly updating his LinkedIn profile. Nobody's quit yet, but the boss definitely noticed.
Trading Larkin for picks and prospects would be a bad trade for Detroit, no matter how it gets spun in October.
Todd McLellan, meanwhile, has to keep building a lineup around a player whose name now comes with four other logos attached.
The Red Wings host Columbus on Saturday, then open against the Rangers on October 2.
The longer those four names hang in the air, the harder it gets for anyone in that locker room to pretend this is just podcast chatter.
Should Steve Yzerman trade Dylan Larkin if Colorado, Washington, Dallas or Tampa Bay comes calling?
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