The Athletic’s Michael Russo and Joe Smith offer their takes on the Dylan Larkin situation from the Minnesota Wild’s perspective:
As of now, the Wild have set their sights on basically one player: Detroit Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin, who wants out of the only franchise he has played for and has listed Minnesota as one of the teams he’d like to go to.
Of course, Red Wings general manager Steve Yzerman controls that decision, and as of now, he has not pulled the trigger on the Wild’s offer or anybody else’s.
Minnesota will keep trying, but if a deal can’t be done before the opening bell of free agency on Wednesday at 11 a.m., it’ll be interesting to see how Wild GM Bill Guerin proceeds, because the team has a couple of glaring holes up front, with top-nine wingers Mats Zuccarello, Vladimir Tarasenko and Marcus Johansson all potentially out the door. They cannot afford to come away empty-handed.
“We have to go business as usual and make sure that we put the most competitive team on the ice that we can,” Guerin said after the Wild selected three players on Day 2 of the NHL Draft on Saturday. They had no first-round selections on Day 1.
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Obviously, Larkin is still the player the Wild want. If they can’t get him, it’s likely they will continue to remain patient and not blow their precious remaining assets on another center. For instance, Vincent Trocheck would likely cost a first-round pick and Yurov.
But Guerin reminds, “We were a pretty good team (this past season). When there’s the offseason, you’re always talking about, ‘Oh, what do they need to do. this, that, get this guy, get that guy, get this position.’ We’re still a pretty good team, and we’ve got some holes to fill. We’ll fill them. We just don’t know in which way we’ll do that right now, but we’re working at looking at a lot of different things.”
Continued (paywall); Minnesota is obviously one of Larkin’s preferred destinations, but, as Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman told the media today, the Detroit Red Wings cannot afford to take anything less than commensurate compensation for their disgruntled captain.
