Of annoying Red Wings-related note this morning…
- Bleacher Report’s Joe Yerdon examines 7 transactions that “Should Have Happened” this offseason, including the resolution to Dylan Larkin’s desire to leave the Red Wings:
Dylan Larkin to the Minnesota Wild
All while Dylan Larkin remains with the Detroit Red Wings, we’ll be wondering “what if” about how things played out this summer.
Larkin’s trade request to now-former GM Steve Yzerman rocked the organization. It was a sudden move from the team captain and one that perhaps helped usher in a change in the hierarchy in Detroit.
Although Yzerman is still with the organization in a new role, his successor will have Larkin’s trade request front and center on their desk when they’re hired.
Of the four teams Larkin reportedly wants to go to, Minnesota is the one that could use him most and has the assets to make a deal happen most readily.
Adding him to the Wild roster to play alongside Matt Boldy, Kirill Kaprizov and Quinn Hughes would make Minnesota much more dangerous. The kind of trade package the Wild could put together would also give the Red Wings a lot to work with both for now and the future.
This trade, or any move for Larkin, still could happen, but we’re left wondering why it hasn’t.
Continued; the trade hasn’t happened, despite the Wild press’s insistence to the contrary, because the Wild haven’t offered Detroit enough present-day help to consummate the trade.
This is an aggravating exercise. We know why these trades haven’t happened–because you can’t wish your way into a transaction happening!
2. And, while I’m in a mood, The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn is here to pee on our Cornflakes with a statistical analysis of…*checks notes*…”contract efficiencies” of NHL teams…and you will be shocked to find out that the Red Wings, who employ Andrew Copp, J.T. Compher and other players with bloated contracts, rank 16th out of 32nd in the league in Luszczyszyn’s rankings:
16. Detroit Red Wings
Last season: 13th
Shoutout to the Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider deals; they’re the only reason the Red Wings barely land in the league’s top half. A lot of the cap sheet aside from that duo still looks lackluster, however, and it’s why the Red Wings’ average positive value rate is on the wrong side of 50 percent.
The Red Wings have a lot of cap space, but it’s rare that they know how to use it. A lot of their free agency bets from the past have aged poorly and I don’t quite see why they traded for Keegan Kolesar, given his contract. The Ben Chiarot extension from earlier this season remains mind-boggling and was immediately one of the league’s worst deals. That his game only degraded further from that moment makes things even worse.
Continued; somehow, Luszczyszyn’s model ranks Keegan Kolesar and Daniil Tarasov’s contracts as particularly egregious, though I do not understand how $4.5 million total for a fourth-liner ($2.5 million for Kolesar) and a back-up goaltender ($2 million for Tarasov) earn “C-” and “C+” grades, respectively.
