Dylan Larkin Has Played His Final Game For The Detroit Red Wings, And Now Will Lose $41K Per Day Until He's Finally Traded
Leila Devlin. Getty Images.There is going to come a day when we finally hear everything that was discussed in that Team USA locker room during the Winter Olympics. There is going to come a day when we finally learn of everything that was said in the group chats after winning gold in Milan, and the first few games back in the NHL for all of these guys. Because anyone with two brain cells knows that these guys all concocted some sort of plan to link up like the Avengers and win a Stanley Cup together.
Quinn Hughes got out ahead of it by getting himself traded out of Vancouver before the Olympics. Then Brady Tkachuk requests a trade out of Ottawa. There was plenty of speculation around whether or not Auston Matthews intends on staying in Toronto. There was a quick 72 hour window where it looked like Zach Werenski told the Blue Jackets he had no intentions on staying in Columbus. Connor Hellebuyck demanded a trade out of Winnipeg, and he was finally just dealt to New Jersey after forfeiting over $900,000 in salary. And now the Dylan Larkin situation has reached its boiling point in Detroit.
Dylan Larkin requested a trade out of Detroit this past offseason after spending the last 6 seasons as the team's captain. He's a hometown kid who played his entire 11-year NHL career with the Red Wings up until this point. Steve Yzerman also knows a thing or two about being a captain of the Detroit Red Wings, and he wasn't going to just give in to Larkin's request. He wasn't going to just trade the captain of the Red Wings because he wants to go play with his buddies. So no trades materialize over the summer, and Yzerman realizes he's had enough of this shit. He stepped down as the team's General Manager, and is now a senior advisor to Chris Illitch while Shawn Horcoff has taken over the GM position.
Shawn Horcoff has been with the Red Wings organization for 10 years now. He's been the assistant GM for a few years now. But what a spot to jump into while getting your first kick at being the actual GM of an NHL organization, even if it's just with the interim tag attached to it. His first go as the General Manager of an Original 6 NHL franchise, and he is tasked with figuring out what to do with the team's captain who has demanded a trade. Well, I guess technically the team's former captain after the Red Wings stripped the 'C' off of his sweater.
The whole situation is such a gigantic cluster fuck, and now here we are. The first month of the season is coming to an end, and Dylan Larkin is still in Detroit. He's played 10 games so far without wearing the 'C', has put up a respectable 6 points, and now he's finally had enough. He's over this shit, and he's not playing again until it's with a different team.
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Now here's the thing--Dylan Larkin gave the Red Wings an almost impossible task here. The list of teams he's willing to accept a trade to all have almost no cap space to work with. He has Vegas on his list, who currently has -10.43M in cap space. Good luck with that. He has Dallas, Florida, and Minnesota on his list, who all currently have -3.5M in cap space. Good luck with that. Washington is in the red. New Jersey has like $20 dollars to work with, and same with Colorado. Obviously all of these teams would have to send a really good, and really expensive, player back in exchange for Dylan Larkin to make a trade work. And while Dylan Larkin is a really good player in the NHL, it doesn't seem like these teams are willing to do whatever it takes to get him.
So while he waits to see where he ends up, Dylan Larkin will be losing $41K per day.
I'm writing this blog at 6:15am and as of right now, here is his total. It's a far cry from the $923K that Hellebuyck forfeited before getting traded to New Jersey, but who knows how squirrely this situation can get.
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You can keep track of those losses here if you enjoy watching others lose money. Could be a good way to go into your weekend. You might lose a couple hundred at the bar this weekend, but it could always be worse.
What a league, man. We're not even into November yet and we've already watched 2 players get suspended by their own team while waiting to get traded.
Sidenote: New Jersey is definitely in the mix to land Larkin. That's just a little too on-the-nose for me that these guys made a deal with the Devil to win an Olympic gold medal. Worth it? Absolutely.