The Detroit Red Wings Chose To Be As Petty As Possible By Publicly Humiliating Dylan Larkin On The Jumbotron For The Home Opener
By this point, everybody knows about the Dylan Larkin situation in Detroit. Guy signs an 8-year deal, requests a trade in year 4, Detroit feels like they've gotten kicked in the cock by their own captain turning their back on them, and they haven't shown any sense of urgency to trade the guy.
They've stripped Larkin of his captaincy already. They've removed images of him from around the building. It's pretty obvious that the organization hates the shit out of Dylan Larkin at this point. Which is totally fine, but there's definitely a line. There's definitely a moment where it stops being a team playing hardball, and an organization acting like a bunch of petty dickheads. And that line was crossed last night during Detroit's home opener.
The Red Wings knew exactly what was going to happen here. I get it's the home opener and it's usually customary to announce everybody on the opening night roster--even the scratches. But there was 100% a way they could have just avoided a Dylan Larkin introduction. But the team knew the response he'd get, and they wanted the public humiliation. They wanted the former captain of this team to feel the whole fanbase boo him straight to his face. They wanted to make sure there was as much salt as humanly possible poured directly into the wound.
And now I think I'm on Larkin's side more than ever. Dylan Larkin has been to the playoffs one time in his NHL career. It was his rookie season with the Red Wings.
Since then, he has given everything to the city of Detroit. He's a kid from Michigan who went to the U of M. I'm sure there's nothing more that Dylan Larkin would have loved more than to be the next captain of the Red Wings to hoist the Stanley Cup over his head. He signed an 8-year contract with the team in March of 2023 under the assumption that Steve Yzerman and the Red Wings would do everything they could to build a Stanley Cup contending roster around him.
And then they didn't. The Red Wings have continued to suck. They haven't finished anything higher than 5th place in the Atlantic since the 2015-16 season. Mo Sieder is a great player. Lucas Raymond is a great player. But the Red Wings haven't gone out and made any real moves outside of high draft picks to make their team any better. Alex DeBrincat is probably the best acquisition they made, and that's just because he's a kid from Michigan.
Dylan Larkin finally had enough of losing in Detroit, and he requested a trade. So he signs an 8-year deal and then requests a trade in year 4 of that deal. Now to be fair, he didn't leave the Red Wings with much wiggle room. He initially gave them a pretty tight list of Minnesota, Florida and Vegas. He's since opened up the list a bit to Colorado, Washington, Tampa, and Dallas. So he definitely handcuffed Detroit's ability to trade him. But at the same time, the only reason he wants to be traded in the first place is because Detroit hasn't held up their end of the bargain by building a contender around him.
It's all a very nuanced and complicated situation. Is the player an asshole for demanding a trade halfway through an 8-year deal and essentially turning his back on Detroit? Or are the Red Wings are bunch of incompetent dipshits who essentially turned their backs on Larkin by not piecing together a halfway decent roster at this point. At the end of the day, the Detroit Red Wings have failed as an organization. Steve Yzerman sucked dick at his job, the Yzerplan was never a real thing, and they have gone a full 10 years without sniffing the playoffs. It's not Dylan Larkin's fault for wanting to get out of there while he can still be a key contributor to an actually good team. The Red Wings are garbage, and now they made sure that any free agent out there knows exactly how they will treat you on your way out. Good luck with that.