It was reported this off-season that the Detroit Red Wings were listening to calls on the current captain, Dylan Larkin. Since that point in the off-season, things have seemed to change. So what are the Red Wings plans with the captain?
The Detroit Red Wings have a lot of decisions to make this upcoming off-season with potentially 11 current Red Wings players set to hit free agency. Now, to most people they see two options with that in mind.
First, they feel that they will re-sign a majority of the players set to be free agents. Now, I’m assuming that the people who are saying are going to want to see how this seasons plays out before committing to the idea of this. And that’s fair. And I’m assuming that the same goes for the second idea that I have which is- they probably think that they’ll let a majority of them walk. But there is a third option which puts us at what this article is about- what do they do with Dylan Larkin?
This is the final year with Larkin under contract, and so for that reason, the Red Wings fielding calls for him was an easy decision. However, since that point in time, things have seemed to change. And now, it would appear that the Red Wings are going to look to extend Dylan Larkin to keep him around.
The Red Wings were going into the off-season thinking that they weren’t ready to compete and so this is the perfect year to give some of their young guys a chance to make the team and see minutes on the ice. But that’s when things went a little crazy.
The Ottawa Senators, who are in a similar stage as the Red Wings, went out and traded for superstar forward, Alex DeBrincat. That trade showed the entire league, the Senators mean business. But, the Red Wings decided to use that trade to re-evaluate their team which led us to the crazy off-season.
The Red Wings went out and signed David Perron, Ben Chiarot, Andrew Copp, Olli Maatta, and Dominik Kubalik. Additionally, they traded for goalie, Ville Husso. Those moves showed the league that the Red Wings are ready to take the step forward which is to compete for a playoff spot. And so they shall. However, the question remains, what is the plan with Dylan Larkin? And if they keep him around, what would an extension look like for the captain?