Daily Faceoff’s Hunter Crowther offers this quip from The Fourth Period’s David Pagnotta today, on DFO’s live YouTube show (check the 25-minute mark):
Carter Hutton: My biggest question right now is the Red Wings, and Steve Yzerman’s relationship with the fan base. What do the Wings do now just to survive this Dylan Larkin trade drama and everything that’s surrounded the club so far?
David Pagnotta: Their preference is to get talent back, and I think, for now anyway, it’s proven to be difficult. Most teams are looking at packages that revolve around future assets. That’s why teams are also knocking on the door in terms of Alex DeBrincat and where his future is at with Detroit.
I think the preference would have been to get a deal done before the end of the weekend, and now we’re into Monday, so obviously it didn’t happen. We’ll see how much longer this gets prolonged; as we all know, Steve Yzerman is willing to wait this out and get a return that he deems worthy of making this trade.
But again, it’s going to be a matter of, “How much can I improve now vs. how much more valuable are the future packages?” That’s going to set them back, and are they willing to do that? That’s one of the things that’s being weighed out by the sounds of things.
I don’t see the Red Wings trading DeBrincat to clear the decks and restart the rebuild, but the Wings are probably going to have to “flip” some of the assets they receive for Larkin for the sake of snagging some present-day assistance.
The Wings are not going to be quite as good without Larkin, and that’s going to have to be addressed via the desert that is free agency and/or through another trade, whether that happens this summer or sometime into the 2026-2027 season. They’ll have to manage as they can.
