wouldn\u2019t be the first<\/a> \u2014 it\u2019s hard to seriously pencil in Larkin atop the Red Wings\u2019 lineup for next season.<\/p>\nThe Red Wings will, of course, get something for Larkin whenever they trade him, whether it\u2019s picks, prospects or ready-made players. Even if it\u2019s the latter, though, it\u2019s hard to see Detroit getting back a true No. 1 center ready to give Larkin-level impact in 2026.<\/p>\n
Without that, even factoring in the needs addressed elsewhere, the Red Wings are likely to take a step back next season. That\u2019s especially true in a division where so much of the competition is taking steps forward.<\/p>\n
Yes, the Red Wings still have one heck of a building block in Moritz Seider \u2014 their 25-year-old franchise defenseman who just finished top five for the Norris Trophy. Simon Edvinsson, his defense partner, continues to rise, too, forming an enviable top pair on the blue line. Add wingers Lucas Raymond and Alex DeBrincat, two premium offensive talents, and you have a decent core, not unlike that of the Bruins, who made the playoffs last season.<\/p>\n
But keep in mind, Boston already finished ahead of the Red Wings with Larkin. The Bruins have one of the top goaltenders in the sport in Jeremy Swayman. Maybe Ottawa falls off in the wake of Brady Tkachuk\u2019s exit, and who knows how Toronto\u2019s Darren Raddysh and Sergei Bobrovsky experiments go, but start stacking up the Red Wings against the bottom half of the division, and you find yourself straining to see who Detroit is clearly better than. That alone says a lot about where they stand.<\/p>\n
Again, this offseason isn\u2019t over, and there is presumably more (perhaps a lot more!) coming. If and when it does, Detroit\u2019s outlook will be updated accordingly.<\/p>\n
Right now, though, it looks like the Red Wings\u2019 best path may be to simply steer into the skid, giving lots of prime ice time to young forwards Marco Kasper, Emmitt Finnie, Nate Danielson and Michael Brandsegg-Nyg\u00e5rd, as well as Carter Mazur, who re-upped on a two-year deal Wednesday. Surrounding them with players like Arvidsson and Kolesar doesn\u2019t make the Red Wings a contender in a post-Larkin world, but it does round out the lineup with the elements Detroit wanted, and now it can offer some opportunity to the players who will need to step up going forward.<\/p>\n
That could be hard to accept for those who have lived through the Red Wings\u2019 ongoing 10-year playoff drought, including ownership and even for Yzerman, whose own status has to be under scrutiny in all of this.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the alternative, though? Scramble to find a mid-to-late-20s player around Larkin\u2019s level, and they could get back into the cluster of teams fighting for a wild card. It\u2019s an option, and a possibility, but it\u2019s hard to call it a particularly good one.<\/p>\n
Granted, taking it on the chin for a year and re-assessing isn\u2019t ideal, either. But that\u2019s the crux of where the Red Wings sit right now: There aren\u2019t many appealing options in front of them. That reality was setting in before Larkin\u2019s trade request, and this saga has exacerbated it.<\/p>\n
Maybe, as the offseason continues, the Red Wings can turn over the right stone and find a path back to contention. Crazier things have happened, and there are still good players with uncertain futures around the league, albeit more so on the trade market than in free agency.<\/p>\n
Right now, though, the Red Wings\u2019 outlook for 2026 isn\u2019t pretty. That was true entering July 1, and it\u2019s true exiting it, with a whole lot of work still to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DETROIT \u2014 It is almost impossible to assess the Detroit Red Wings\u2019 offseason moves when their biggest, defining…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":738423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[1786,385,99],"class_list":["post-738422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-detroit-red-wings","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738422","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=738422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/738423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=738422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=738422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=738422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}