November is right around the corner, and the Detroit Red Wings are well underway, with several narratives already emerging. One key one playing out off the ice centers on two players who are in the last year of their contracts: Dylan Larkin and Tyler Bertuzzi.
They are the subject of this Wings mailbag, with Free Press reader J.J. Christensen writing to ask, “Why aren’t Larkin & Bertuzzi re-signed yet? Seems like something that should have been done by now, to avoid a distraction.”
Larkin, 26, figures to get the biggest contract Steve Yzerman will author since being named general manager of the Wings in April 2019. Eight years seems a given for the homegrown draft pick named captain by Yzerman in January 2021, but the salary is what has held up an agreement. Larkin’s camp can use the eight-year, $73.2 million contract that 25-year-old Mathew Barzal inked in early October as a comparable. Barzal, the No. 16 pick in 2015, has put up 318 points in 369 games with an Islanders team that has made the playoffs in three of his five seasons and advanced to the conference finals twice. Larkin, the No. 15 pick in 2014, has 366 points in 510 games for a team that has been rebuilding since his arrival.
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Barzal’s cap number is $9.15 million. That’s higher than the Wings want to go — they want Larkin around $8 million. He’s a good player, an extremely hard worker, and does everything possible to be a good leader, and he is a key part of the rebuild. But Yzerman also has a big-picture budget to worry about, and in another year, Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond will be looking for extensions — and Seider, the 2022 Calder Trophy winner — especially will command a bundle. (Cale Makar, Zach Werenski and Charlie McAvoy command $9 million a year and upwards, to take three examples of elite defensemen in their early 20s who signed long-term deals.)
Bertuzzi, 27, is coming off a 30-goal season, his third hitting the back of the net at least 20 times. The No. 58 pick in 2013 has 189 points in 278 games. He suffered an upper-body injury in the second game of the season, with his return pegged at four-to-six weeks. That does not facilitate negotiations, as the Wings can argue Bertuzzi’s value has been clouded by missing all but nine games during the 2020-21 (back injury) season and being limited to 68 games last season (nine of those because his decision not to get the COVID vaccine prevented him from playing in Canada).
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Add it all up, and Bertuzzi is likely to get $6.5 million-7 million a season.
Yzerman has been judicial and methodical as a general manager. He certainly isn’t going to let Larkin and Bertuzzi play out the season in Wings uniform without contract extensions — it would be detrimental to the rebuild to risk losing either to unrestricted free agency next summer. The trade deadline is March 3, so there is still plenty of time to strike deals — be it to sign them, or, if stalemates continue, trade them.
Contact Helene St. James at hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @helenestjames.
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Her latest book, “On the Clock: Behind the Scenes with the Detroit Red Wings at the NHL Draft,” is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Triumph Books. Personalized copies available via her e-mail.