After another failed season for the Detroit Red Wings, captain Dylan Larkin has requested a trade. The captain, who will turn 30 years old on July 30, hasn’t experienced an NHL post-season since 2015-16 and is looking to change his situation.
It was initially reported that he submitted a list of three teams he was willing to waive his no-movement clause to be traded to: the Minnesota Wild, Vegas Golden Knights, and Florida Panthers. It’s a selection of some of the most consistent performers from the past few years, teams that have missed the playoffs a combined three times since the shortened 2020-21 season. It wasn’t all of the top contenders, and the fact that the list was even public was probably an attempt by the Red Wings to get him to extend it, which he apparently has by the latest reports.
The Montreal Canadiens would present an interesting option as a trade partner, with prospects and picks to give the Red Wings a full complement of assets, which isn’t the case for many top contenders. Before the Canadiens need to put in a request for him to add them to his options, first they need to look at how he would slot into the lineup to see if he can help the organization take a step beyond the major leap they experienced in the 2025-26 season.
A centreman who produces consistently, albeit not at an elite level, seems like a great fit for Montreal. The Habs have tried several different players in the past few years in the middle of the second line trying to create a complementary unit to Nick Suzuki’s trio, but in the playoffs it was Jake Evans who stepped into that role. Evans performed better than expected in that position with 10 points and a +11 goal differential in the post-season, but he should be bringing that quality to a bottom-six role on a completed roster that is ready to contend for the Stanley Cup.
Seeing the core of his team play through four playoff rounds in the past two years, Kent Hughes has an idea of what he needs to improve the roster. Ideally he’d have a body of post-season play to draw upon for the players he’s looking to add this off-season, but that obviously isn’t possible in Larkin’s case. The sample is limited to regular-season games, and we can see how he performed this season, which proved to be the final one he was willing to play in Detroit.
He used his speed to drive through the middle of the ice to set things up from there, but also saw offence created from working the puck along the boards once the offensive zone was gained. Many of his goals in 2025-26 came from give-and-goes as he moved the puck past defenders and presented himself as a shooting option. He’s good at finding a bit of space near the net to prepare for a pass, and scored many of his goals from right around the crease.
While there are no playoff games to evaluate, there is a repeated situation of the Red Wings collapsing late in the season each of the past three years. We can get a bit of an indication of how Larkin performed in the critical matches down the stretch by comparing that to how he performed beforehand, to see what his impact looked like when the Red Wings needed their captain the most.
Comparing his performance relative to those of his teammates from the opening two-thirds of each season to the final third can give some insight into how he fared when each point became critical. The analysis will look at relative expected-goal percentage (xGF% rel) to see how his play stood up in the toughest moments.
In the 2023-24 season, the Red Wings came out of the all-star break on fire, with a six-game winning streak at the end of February. With that, they held the first wild-card spot and were eight points clear of the first non-playoff team, then missed the playoffs on the regulation wins tiebreaker. In the opening 55 games of the season, Larkin ranked seventh of 14 forwards who played in 18 games for the team at a +1.35 xGF% rel — about as average as you can get — but performed the way you would expect a star player to in the final games. His mark was a +6.02 xGF% rel in the final games, topping the club, and he co-led the team at a point per game over that time.
Unfortunately for the Red Wings, an injury kept him out for most of the month of March, 2024, so he played just 18 of the final 27 games, and the team was unable to win in his absence. If you wanted to see how much he meant to the team that season, their play with and without their captain was proof enough of his quality. But over the past couple of years as history repeated itself, the same conclusion couldn’t be drawn.
| Games 1-55 | Game 56-82 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| xGF% rel | Team rank (min. 18 GP) | xGF% rel | Team rank (min. 9 GP) | |
| 2023-24 | 1.35 | 7 of 14 | 6.02 | 1 of 13 |
| 2024-25 | 5.73 | 3 of 13 | 3.32 | 4 of 13 |
| 2025-26 | -0.19 | 9 of 13 | -6.98 | 10 of 13 |
He carried his 2023-24 finish into the next season, but dropped along with the team as it finished outside the playoff picture again. This season he never got to the form expected of him. He was just an average forward for the team that held the top spot in the Eastern Conference on January 24, and then was one of its least impressive the rest of the way, seven percentage points lower than the team average in expected-goal share, as even that lofty position wasn’t enough cushion for Detroit to snap its playoff drought.
A significant reason for his struggles this season was his play in the defensive zone, as he was unable to turn possession in his team’s favour and use that speed to generate offence when it was needed, one of the worst players in the NHL at winning pucks in his own end in All Three Zones’ tracked sample of 200 five-on-five minutes. It’s a very familiar situation to what the Canadiens experienced late in the opening two rounds this year and throughout the Eastern Conference Final, forced to play defence and having their speed and transition game completely neutralized.
Larkin’s profile was similar to that of Alex Newhook, one of the players the Canadiens have tried at second-line centre in the past few years. They’re both players who use their speed to their advantage and look for an opening around the net in the attacking zone to create their offence. Larkin is much more of a shooter, but Newhook is the better player in his own zone, executing controlled breakouts by supporting his teammates as an outlet, and easing pressure that way.
Even a brief glance at their offensive totals shows Larkin to be a better offensive player overall, with his typical total of 70 points more than doubling Newhook’s career high. This season, however, one in which Newhook turned 25 halfway through, the disparity isn’t so great when looking at the even-strength numbers. The Montreal forward started the season well, and picked right up where he left off after lengthy absence with injury. He ended a 42-game campaign with 22 even-strength points, a per-game average of 0.52. Larkin posted 42 such points in 74 games, for an average of 0.57. Over the three years defined by late collapses for Detroit, Larkin has 126 even-strength points in 224 games, 0.56 per game.
Adding another Newhook to the roster wouldn’t be a terrible thing. Even though Montreal challenged for the Atlantic Division title this season, it wouldn’t mind that extra help offensively in the regular season considering that the Buffalo Sabres should be expected to be even better next year with this spring’s playoff experience, the Toronto Maple Leafs are due for an injection of talent with the first overall pick, and the Florida Panthers aren’t going to be 25th again. Each goal helps counter those improvements from rival clubs, and might help ease some of the strain of playing close games all season long.
The question is whether that’s the major commitment the management team wants to make. Larkin is going to be an expensive addition, requiring a handful of valuable assets Montreal holds. He has a contract that carries an $8.7-million cap hit and runs for another five years; a reasonable dollar figure for a consistently productive player, a less ideal term for a player about to turn 30.
Before Montreal’s playoff run, adding someone of Larkin’s calibre would have looked like an easy decision. Now that it’s over and we saw what worked and what didn’t for the Habs, the wiser move might be to find someone who complements what their core already provides rather than doubling down on what they were in 2025-26.
