In a life that’s taken many twists and turns, I hate dealing in hypothetical situations.
The “What if’s” and “should’ves and could’ves” of existence are questions and declarations that don’t really help us reexamine wrong decisions we’ve made, the unfulfilled wishes that we have or the potential situations where we might have found ourselves in a very different place, had things gone differently.
We can only learn from the past, not re-litigate it, and we can only affect our present and our future. We can figure out what went wrong by performing an autopsy/audit of how we screwed up, we can try to implement plans to do things differently and/or avoid making the same mistake(s) today and tomorrow, and then, we have to move forward.
As such, I’m not posting a very well-written article from Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff that wonders “What If the Red Wings Had Made the Playoffs?” because Detroit didn’t do that.
I don’t believe that Dylan Larkin or Patrick Kane’s nebulous off-season destinations would not be in doubt simply because the Wings earned a playoff spot.
To me, maybe it’s wistful to wonder whether we’d be talking about a Larkin trade scenario if Detroit hadn’t face-planted over the course of the second half of this past season…
But it’s not useful to try to re-play those games for the sake of anything other than to perform an autopsy/audit on what actually happened, and to examine past practices so that the Red Wings can attempt to avoid them in the future.
I feel a somewhat similarly regarding draft pick development.
It’s really easy to say that team X should have drafted player Y instead of player Z, but second-guessing and third-guessing picks that weren’t made doesn’t help with having to develop the players that you’ve got to their maximum potential. You can’t redraft; you can make better choices next time around.
Along those lines, Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen has discusses “Why Draft Picks Don’t Work in [a] Larkin Deal” this morning.
Let’s talk “present and future” regarding a Larkin trade, at least as best as we are able:
When Utah Mammoth general manager Bill Armstrong was asked why he matched the offer sheet for center Barrett Hayton his answer was also telling for those following the Dylan Larkin saga. NHL GMs have gotten real about first and second-round picks.
“A second-round pick has about a 30 percent chance of playing in the NHL,” Armstrong said. “It doesn’t make sense. We don’t need a pick off in the future. We need a player who is a proven NHLer.”
Armstrong was talking about the compensation the Mammoth would have received for Hayton had too much uncertainty to accept losing a regular in his lineup. If Steve Yzerman was a GM who talked regularly with the media, he could definitely make a statement similar to Armstrong’s regarding his potential trading of Larkin.
(zing)
Yzerman has made it clear that he won’t accept any offer that doesn’t include a proven player or players for Larkin. A true understanding of the value and risk of draft picks, even first-round picks, has become a bigger part of a NHL teams’ a approach
NHL GMs now factor in the probability of landing a regular from a first- and second-round picks. Armstrong’s numbers aren’t wrong. A recent Detroit Hockey Now review of draft picks from 2011 to 2020 showed the second-round yield of true NHLers to be about 34 percent.
Your final number depends on how you define being a true NHLer. We used 200 games played. Our numbers for the first round showed that the first round consists of two different player pools. When you draft from No. 1 to No. 15, NHL teams had an 83% chance of getting a regular. But a first round pick from No. 16 to No. 32 only yields an NHL regular 50 to 55%. The added problem is that most teams willing to move first round picks are good teams that will be picking outside the first 15 picks.
Those numbers explain why GMs have eyes wide open when they are trading proven players for draft picks with far less certainty.
Allen continues, arguing that the Red Wings are going to expect to acquire two useful players and one first-round pick instead of a “futures” deal of multiple picks and prospects for Larkin…
And I think that’s an important point to emphasize and underline.
Generally speaking, the team that “wins the trade” is the team that ends up with the best player, and in that sense, there’s no way that the Red Wings can truly “win” the Dylan Larkin trade, especially when they’re restricted to 3 (or 4?) teams to which Larkin’s willing to be traded.
They’re not going to end up with the best player–at best, they’ll end up with a lesser star player, another roster player or top prospect, and/or another top prospect and/or a 1st round pick, and one developed player, a couple of players who have probable NHL jobs in the near future and a draft pick crapshoot does not equal ( =/= ) Dylan Larkin’s proven 30-goal, 60-70 point potential.
Right now, the Minnesota Wild scenario in which the Wings would receive Joel Eriksson Ek, NHL-bound prospects Charlie Stramel and/or Danila Yurov, and perhaps a 1st round pick is a good example of a realistic trade for Larkin. It’s not a perfect metaphor here, but the sum total of Eriksson Ek + Stramel + Yurov + ??? does not equal ( =/= ) Dylan Larkin’s established production.
Ultimately, there’s no way for the Red Wings to “win” a trade with their hands tied behind their back due to Larkin’s restriction of the franchise’s trade options to 3 (or 4?) teams (we’ll address the topic of no-trade clauses elsewhere)…
And there’s no way that the Red Wings will truly “win” a trade given that, at best, they’re going to end up with two or three players who add up to near Dylan Larkin’s value.
The Wings are going to lose the trade, one way or another, and that’s not a good thing or a bad thing–it’s just the truth.
We know that the Florida Panthers won’t swap a blossoming Anton Lundell and an established Eetu Luostarinen for Larkin;
We know that the Vegas Golden Knights just don’t have a comparable set of assets for Larkin given that they’ve traded Pavel Dorofeyev to New York (with the two Vegas players who might yield a present + futures + futures trade for Larkin, in Tomas Hertl and/or William Karlsson, are 32 and 33 years old, respectively);
If we are to even consider the Dallas Stars as part of the equation, they’re not going to trade Wyatt Johnston or a re-signed Jason Robertson to Detroit straight up for Larkin, either, so the Wings couldn’t “win” that situation, and Dallas just doesn’t have the strength up the middle to provide commensurate value for Larkin via a center-for-a-center trade not including Johnston…
Mostly, because the Minnesota Wild are perceived as Larkin’s most likely destination, we do know that the Eriksson Ek + Stramel and/or Yurov and/or a 1st for Larkin deal is being proposed by journalists whose GM does talk to the media regularly. So we’ll examine that scenario.
The Minnesota media almost always suggests that the proposed trade includes Eriksson Ek or Ryan Hartman, plus Stramel, plus Yurov, maybe plus a first-round pick, so that seems to be Guerin’s real offer for Larkin, or something close to what’s being offered. An established player + a “probably an NHL’er” in Stramel + a “future” in a draft pick =/= Dylan Larkin.
The Red Wings-Larkin divorce is a situation in which possession of the best player is 9/10ths of the law, so whoever ends up with Larkin is going to win, and that’s not going to be Detroit.
I also don’t believe that the relationship can be repaired, and, at this point, I happen to believe that requiring Larkin to “show up at training camp, or be suspended” is not the right route to go, but that’s beside the point.
Ultimately, whether we’re looking at the Minnesota deal, or another proposed trade that doesn’t include “untouchables,” the Detroit Red Wings’ GM and management team cannot and will not receive commensurate “right now” value for Larkin, even when you add up potential “pieces” of a trade with one of Larkin’s preferred teams. That’s just the truth.
So Yzerman and the Red Wings will try to lose with dignity, expel the malcontent (that’s Larkin) from their roster, and move on while taking the smallest step backward as possible.
That’s how they’re going to manage the team’s present and the team’s future, and how they’re going to try to manage the “hypotheticals” as best they can.
All without having the option to negotiate a real “best deal” with a team that does have the best “right now” assets for Larkin.
We are where we are at. The Detroit Red Wings are where they are at with the Dylan Larkin impasse, and the team that ends up with the best player(s) after the trade won’t be the Detroit Red Wings.
The best thing we can do as Red Wings partisans is to brace ourselves for the “L” and understand why it’s going to be a “L.”
