Month: June 2026

Blog news:

My health conditions continue to improve, slowly, over time. I’m getting more energy back as the days and weeks progress, and I am at least at an every-other-day-is-not-so-bad point right now. I can function for a day, and then rest for a day.

I would like to get back to full-time blogging by the start of the 2026 NHL Draft on June 26th and 27th, to try to carry through the Red Wings’ summer development camp and free agency, and then…

I hope to use the “quieter” (this is a relative term) summer months to build up endurance energy-wise to figure out how much I’m going to be able to return to every-day blogging come training camp and the exhibition season.

Put bluntly, I have four motivators:

1. I miss blogging like crazy. It’s the only real outlet that I have aside from rendering care to my now 84-year-old aunt, and the blog gives me an identity, it gives me a voice, and it gives me a routine sharing coverage of the team I’ve been following since 1991.
2. We’re at a point where following the team at an advanced level takes so much time that it makes little sense to not share what I’m reading from around the world with an audience. There’s so much Red Wings-related stuff on the internet right now that it’s a job to read and respond to it all, regardless of whether it’s being shared, so if I can have a figurative microphone with which to offer my thoughts and start conversations, that’s a logical place to be for me.
3. Aunt Annie supports what I want to do, regardless of whether that’s being an every-day blogger or an every-couple-of-days opinion-sharing blogger (which may end up being what I do if the energy level never really returns to near-normal). Aunt Annie and my therapist alike know that this blog is good for my mental health, and as someone who deals with chronic mental illnesses, it’s not just a creative outlet or a, “Hell, might as well share the information that I’m reading” outlet–it facilitates my mental health.
4. Finally, it’s too expensive to be a Red Wings fan following every source that I’ve subscribed to without doing this to at least “break even” money-wise. I can’t afford my subscriptions to MLive, the Free Press, the Detroit News, Detroit Hockey Now, The Athletic, ESPN, etc. etc. without your help, because I’m making minimum wage as a State of Michigan-employed caregiver for Aunt Annie, so it’s imperative that I provide coverage that’s worth both your time and some level of fiscal support.

As of June 4th, that’s where I’m at in terms of hoping and praying for and working toward a return to the blog. I hope that you’ll continue following as I make my way back behind the laptop over the course of the next month.

I am stunned and gutted by the news from Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman that Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin has requested a trade from the team.

As a fan, I can’t tell you enough good things about Larkin. I believe that, over the course of his 9-year tenure with the team, he’s done nothing but give 100% for his coaches, teammates and fans, and he’s been bloody proud to wear the Winged Wheel and represent the team as its captain.

I don’t know where things went south between captain and team, though ESPN’s Emily Kaplan offered some significant hints as to why the relationship between the captain and the management team has gone sour.

All of that being said, as both a fan and a blogger, I believe that the Red Wings are in a tricky position right now–in terms of maximizing 29-year-old Larkin’s value, amidst a dry desert of a free agent marketplace.

Larkin is a #1 center in the right situation, and he’s a 65-to-75 point-scorer and 25-goal-scorer, and while he’s made his desire to leave the Wings for a fresh start clear…

We all know that GM Steve Yzerman isn’t going to be backed into a corner. He’s going to ask for a top-of-the-line return, which includes the usual: a strong roster contributor, a prospect, and a first-round draft pick.

Yzerman can ask for that much because of Larkin’s “motor,” on and off the ice, as a driver of play, and he cannot settle for less just because Larkin’s demands have become public.

He’s a trade asset now (and a trade asset with an affordable contract under the ever-expanding salary cap), and whether you loved him or loathed him, especially because the free agent marketplace is so incredibly dead, it’s going to be up to the Red Wings’ management to hit a home run while accommodating the captain’s wishes for a new start.

Again, as a fan, I’m genuinely sad and hurt about Larkin’s decision to choose a different path. But as a pseudo-analyst of the team, I want my team to do its damnedest to treat Larkin like nothing more than an asset that is to be leveraged for a maximal return.