The Detroit Red Wings expected to be busy for NHL Draft night. They had possibly the best trade asset available, with Matthew Knies and others being pulled off the block. Many expected the Red Wings to get a top-10 pick in this year’s draft, but those picks kept getting traded for other players. The Chicago Blackhawks traded the fourth-overall pick for Bowen Byram. The Florida Panthers traded the ninth-overall pick for Brady Tkachuk. Seattle’s seventh-overall pick was expected to get dealt for Jason Robertson, but he declined their massive contract offer.
As each and every pick started to choose prospect over trade bait, it became clear that Steve Yzerman wasn’t going to get a major pick in this year’s NHL Draft.
It seemed like a priority for the Red Wings since they didn’t have a first-round pick. They traded that pick to the St. Louis Blues for Justin Faulk. That’s the type of trade a contender makes. Unfortunately, not only did the Red Wings prove they weren’t a contender, but they didn’t even make the playoffs.
This is what led to Dylan Larkin asking for a trade at the end of the season. Since then, he’s been mocked in hundreds of trades from teams across the league. He reportedly has a very small trade list, but new teams, including the Dallas Stars, are reportedly being added. Despite the additional teams that Yzerman can negotiate with, and Larkin’s status as one of the better centers in the NHL, a trade hasn’t happened.
Dylan Larkin remains a Detroit Red Wing past NHL Draft's first round
Nobody really knows what is holding this trade up, but for the first time, it’s a given that the Red Wings won’t get an impact prospect in this year’s draft. As of this writing, Larkin missed out on the top 20 picks in the NHL Draft, and he’s probably sticking with the Red Wings throughout the night.
The most popular option for Larkin has been the Minnesota Wild, but ESPN’s Emily Kaplan said on the broadcast of the draft that the Red Wings brass “isn’t super happy” with the proposal coming from Bill Guerin and the Wild. That shows that teams aren’t willing to go to the extremes that other teams have been willing to go for other star players.
Now that this is off the table, the negotiations can go one of two ways. Either the fact that the top 2026 pick is off the table speeds things up because the Red Wings know what they are working with, or it could slow things down to a halt, and the Red Wings can explain to Larkin that a trade isn’t happening right now.
Either way, the Larkin saga continues. Red Wings fans are forced to continue this suffering. We’re still a few weeks away from the trades going quiet, so a move is still possible, but if the Red Wings get past the free agency period without a move, expect Larkin’s availability to continue into September.
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