{"id":693585,"date":"2026-06-09T14:05:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T14:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/693585\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T14:05:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T14:05:08","slug":"the-wilds-pursuit-of-dylan-larkin-faces-one-major-obstacle-trade-capital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/693585\/","title":{"rendered":"The Wild\u2019s pursuit of Dylan Larkin faces one major obstacle: Trade capital"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are many reasons that the Minnesota Wild and Dylan Larkin make absolute sense as a trade match following the Detroit Red Wings captain\u2019s trade request.<\/p>\n

This Minnesota team might be a No. 1 center away from being a true Stanley Cup contender and is heavily motivated to make a big swing this summer. There\u2019s certainly mutual interest with Larkin and the Wild, who are one of three teams on a list of preferred destinations he gave Detroit, per multiple league sources. The others are the Florida Panthers and the Vegas Golden Knights.<\/p>\n

Wings general manager Steve Yzerman, not one to be backed in a corner<\/a>, will surely try to expand that list and doesn\u2019t have to be in any hurry to trade Larkin, who has five more years on his contract at $8.7 million per year.<\/p>\n

Larkin and Wild superstar Quinn Hughes are really good friends, like brothers. And the Wild brass, from president of hockey operations and GM Bill Guerin to coach John Hynes, got a first-hand look at how valuable Larkin can be during Team USA\u2019s gold-medal-winning run at February\u2019s Olympics and last year\u2019s 4 Nations Face-Off. Guerin was the GM of that team and Hynes was an assistant coach.<\/p>\n

Larkin, also friends with American teammates Matt Boldy and Brock Faber, is a no-doubt, slam-dunk fit.<\/p>\n

But whether the Wild can pull off another blockbuster is a bit more complicated for one main reason:<\/p>\n

They don\u2019t have a ton of trade chips.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know how many teams are going to be in on Dylan Larkin?\u201d said former NHL GM Craig Button, now TSN\u2019s director of amateur scouting. \u201cHere\u2019s the problem for the Minnesota Wild. I don\u2019t think they can get Dylan Larkin for what other teams are going to be able to offer Detroit. That\u2019s the cold, hard reality.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t have the pieces. Too many other teams have the pieces. If I\u2019m Steve Yzerman, it\u2019s not worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Wild exhausted a lot of their trade capital in the Hughes mega deal in mid-December, trading top prospect Zeev Buium, Marco Rossi, Liam Ohgren and their 2026 first-round pick. Sure, there are solid prospects left, like Charlie Stramel and Danila Yurov. But it\u2019s debatable whether those are the kinds of chips that can get you somebody like Larkin on an affordable contract.<\/p>\n

Their top \u201cprospect\u201d or chip is goalie Jesper Wallstedt, who was dangled at the deadline in an offer for St. Louis Blues center Robert Thomas. But it\u2019s hard to see the Wild moving Wallstedt, who looked like their No. 1 during the playoffs, especially with Filip Gustavsson rehabbing from hip surgery this summer and his availability to start the season in question.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also questionable whether Detroit would even want a goalie with its own young goalies in its pipeline.<\/p>\n

You can look at moving some players off the current roster, and the Wild are at the point in their \u201cwin-now\u201d window that they have to be open to doing that. But they also can\u2019t take a step backward or sideways in a deal. Meaning: They\u2019re not looking to move top two-way center Joel Eriksson Ek or shutdown defenseman Jonas Brodin. We all saw how much the Wild missed those two players in their second-round loss to the Colorado Avalanche.<\/p>\n

You trade Eriksson Ek in a Larkin deal, and suddenly you\u2019re one top-six center short again.<\/p>\n

The Wild\u2019s best chance is if the Red Wings honor Larkin\u2019s specific list of limited teams he wants to go to. Their odds are better at outbidding the likes of Vegas and Florida than, say, the Montreal Canadiens. If Larkin can use his leverage to push his way to Minnesota, that would make a more moderate package enough.<\/p>\n

But still, would Florida be willing to give up Anton Lundell in a deal? Would Vegas be willing to trade the rights of pending restricted free agent Pavel Dorofeyev? Hard to imagine the Wild can beat that unless Yzerman solely wants futures.<\/p>\n

Yzerman is no stranger to handling trade requests, having dealt with requests from Jonathan Drouin (2016) and then-captain Martin St. Louis (2014) during his time as Tampa Bay Lightning GM. He didn\u2019t wilt at either and was able to come through with strong deals by the end.<\/p>\n

The Wild may be patient on this one, knowing there could be other stars who follow Matthew Tkachuk\u2019s, Mitch Marner\u2019s and, now, Larkin\u2019s playbook and request their own trades<\/a>. What if Auston Matthews, Brady Tkachuk, Nico Hischier and others go that route this summer?<\/p>\n

As of now, Larkin is the big fish on the market, and part of that is that he\u2019s the only one of those players known to be available. Vincent Trocheck could be a Plan B for the Wild, who pursued the veteran heavily at the deadline but passed at the New York Rangers\u2019 asking price. There\u2019s going to need to be some turnover in the top six, with Marcus Johansson signing back with his hometown team in Sweden and Mats Zuccarello\u2019s return still up in the air.<\/p>\n

Michael McCarron is close to getting re-signed, per league sources, and is a valuable piece, but he\u2019s not the top-six guy they\u2019re looking for. And none of Minnesota\u2019s prospects have that pedigree. Yurov showed some Eriksson Ek two-way tendencies in his rookie year, but he looks to be a trade chip in these kinds of deals.<\/p>\n

The Wild don\u2019t have a first-rounder this year, and while they have theirs in 2027 and 2028, how much value do they carry, especially if they\u2019re likely to be late first-rounders? There are no second-rounders in the next three years, either.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the Wild can get creative and bring in a third team, acquiring an asset Detroit would find more tempting.<\/p>\n

It makes all too much sense for the Wild to do whatever it can to make it happen.<\/p>\n

But it has to make sense for Yzerman, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are many reasons that the Minnesota Wild and Dylan Larkin make absolute sense as a trade match…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":693586,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[1786,4828,385,99],"class_list":["post-693585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-detroit-red-wings","tag-minnesota-wild","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}