00:00out max boltman of the athletic quickly confirming that story yesterday we
00:05look to him for some insight max thanks for making time for us hey jim how you doing good
00:10could you maybe um explain how we got here with dylan larkin uh yeah complicated question we
00:18might use up the whole segment on it um you know as you remember last year the thing that my
00:24mind
00:24first went to when this was breaking was those end of season press conferences and uh you know
00:29larkin talking about the trade deadline in 2025 and you know how he didn't feel the red wings
00:34did enough to kind of generate momentum and get a spark get a morale boost and eiserman kind of
00:39fired back and i think used a couple of larkin's own words and his response talked about the teams
00:43montreal and st louis that didn't add at that deadline uh and went to the playoffs and he
00:48emphasized led by their best players uh that to me certainly felt like a shot across the bow at the
00:54time um and you know i wondered then at that time you know could dylan larkin be out
00:59that being said over the year that transpired that didn't happen and this caught me very much
01:04off guard yesterday so um that was the first place my mind went but you know there's i think
01:08you know fair to say that relationship i think um is one of the first things that comes to my
01:13mind
01:14all the losing of course 10 years uh dylan larkin has has been a red wing through the entire rebuild
01:19and
01:20uh there have been times where i think you've seen the frustration on him um i can't speak for dylan
01:26because i haven't spoken to dylan um but those are the places my mind goes when i heard this and
01:31i think uh probably fair to say that's all part of the picture one of the there's many complicating
01:36factors but the biggest one is the no trade how does that get navigated for steve eiserman and for
01:43dylan larkin it's probably the key question to this whole thing because if the note you know it's
01:49interesting that fans are going to hear this and they're going to say well what do you mean no trade
01:51clause i thought it was a trade request yes but what what the no trade clause does is it gives
01:55dylan larkin control to say these are the places that i want to go um now the red wings don't
02:01have
02:01to honor this request and i think that that does get lost sometimes mostly because typically when
02:06there's a request it that it does lead to a trade um but if the red wings end up kind
02:10of in a corner
02:11here they're going to have to stick handle this a little bit frankly um if there's only two or three
02:16teams on this list then the returns are going to reflect that and that can really uh dramatically
02:21lower what you're able to get even for a star player if the list is bigger let's say even five
02:25six teams and there's a little bit of a bidding war i think that makes it a lot easier for
02:30the
02:30red wings to honor larkin's trade request and to move him so from that sense it might be in both
02:35parties interests to have a little wider pool uh but i just don't know at this time how how big
02:41the
02:41pool of teams dylan larkin wants to go to is and i think it's really the deciding consideration and
02:46how this all works out for the red wings if it's a small list this has disastrous potential if it's
02:51a wider list there's probably a way through it and we all know that steve eisenberg is not going to
02:56be
02:56bullied into anything what does a world look like if he says no awkward um i cannot imagine what
03:07opening night would be like having with how public this became and i think that's an
03:11interesting wrinkle in this i don't know that this was ever supposed to really get out it certainly
03:15complicates it i think from everybody's standpoint and partly for that reason as if for some reason
03:20it doesn't work out this way uh man like what does that look like on opening night how what is
03:25the
03:25reaction from the fans um you know i generally i think teammates tend to be more understanding of
03:30teammates because they're all kind of in in the situation together but what is that dynamic like i
03:36don't know and so uh yeah that's a very real question that i think awkward is the only word
03:41that i'm coming up with when do you think a deal will get done
03:47you know the ideal i think for the red wings would have to be in the next three to four
03:51weeks
03:52that's before the draft before free agency it maybe allows you to kind of position yourself but
03:57if teams are trying to take advantage of the red wings like we've seen eisenberg time and again
04:02decide you know you might think i need something done on on this timeline but i'm going to take the
04:07time i want i thought they needed to have the uh cider and raymond extensions done before july 1
04:12a couple years back and those went into september so i think the ideal would be as early as possible
04:18because then it gives you time to you know manage kind of the key player movement opportunities of
04:24the off season um but if the red wings don't feel like they're getting a good offer then it you
04:29know
04:29there's also obviously the argument you don't want to do something just because you feel like you're up
04:33against it when maybe you have more time to work maybe it increases your own leverage to go past
04:38some of that so i think the ideal you have to be talking about before july 1st um maybe even
04:44ideally
04:45before the draft but in reality it's you know they rarely kind of seem bound by those timelines
04:53is this going to be one of those situations where to get a return that is going to be beneficial
04:59for the wings it's going to be dylan larkin plus
05:05um not necessarily i think they have the opportunity to do something like that i mean if you're
05:09if you were to package larkin with say you know sebastian coast is a goaltending prospect they have
05:15whose whose name could be out there this summer you know you can always get a better return by putting
05:19more in there but i think dylan larkin by himself is a number one center he is one of the
05:24hardest things
05:25to find at the national hockey league as i've been going through starting to kind of try to analyze
05:29this situation one of the things you're looking for is well what are the comparable situations
05:32where a player like this was traded to get an idea for what a return could be well there's not
05:37really
05:38many comparable situations in the last 10 years in the nhl a couple that come to mind ryan o'reilly
05:44and jack eichel both number one centers who went on to win stanley cups with their next teams
05:48both being traded by the buffalo sabers but there's not a wide pool of names of players who
05:55qualify as number one centers who who get moved with this much term on their contract and the prime
06:00of their careers it doesn't happen very often max boltman joining us covers the red wings for the
06:05athletic we deal in the court of public opinion and as you could imagine it's been split today
06:10people say this looks worse for larkin he's quitting others say it looks worse for eiserman this
06:16forever rebuild that just hasn't had enough answers if i ask you to score this who looks worse
06:24i i think there's probably depends on the the frame you're assessing right i think it is fair for people
06:29to be disappointed that um it's ending this way and to have some frustration with larkin but i also
06:35think he's been a really good soldier a really good captain for the detroit red wings and above all
06:40like when we talk about the frustrations around the losing that to me starts with steve eiserman i mean
06:45i'm not saying that it was would have been easy for him to have the red wings in a conference
06:50final
06:50or something by now you know he inherited a tough situation but i think it's more than fair to say
06:55that they they could have done more they could have made better moves they could have handled things
06:59differently that don't arrive at this point seven years into the rebuild where the guy who at the
07:05beginning of this was at the center of everything you know when steve eiserman took over the whole thing
07:09was always going to be built around dylan larkin to me this signals that that stage has failed as the
07:15rebuild and i think the bulk of that would go to steve eiserman so i think it's fair to direct
07:20emotion at all parts here that's how this works in in sports that's how this works in hockey
07:24but i do think it tells you that you know this this stage of the rebuild under eiserman has failed
07:29does this signal the next stage of a rebuild are we looking at two three years or is there do
07:36you see
07:37any path forward to where they could be better next year than they were this year i think it's a
07:41hard
07:42path i'm never going to say it's impossible right i mean they they came into this offseason and we
07:46already thought that they were going to need to try to get better in some key areas if they want
07:51to
07:51they can still take that tact and they can try to target players who are more in their kind of
07:56mid
07:5620s right now and maybe it gets you a little younger but it still keeps you in that kind of
08:02competitive mindset as opposed to going full retool going younger picks younger prospects but it all
08:08depends on you know those factors we talked about at the very beginning what is their pool of teams
08:13that they can assess as they look to make a trade like this and then what else is out there
08:18that they
08:18feel like they can do it may be that they feel like you know what the the path to becoming
08:23a contender
08:23was already pretty narrow in the next four or five years and it was going to be a tough one
08:27to pull off
08:28with dylan larkin maybe you look at this and you say maybe it is time to take a step back
08:33and
08:33and retool it but i don't know how easy of a sell that is um and and so that's one
08:38of the many
08:38things steve eisman is going to have to manage i don't envy this situation for him it's a tricky
08:42spot to be in trickier now that it's gotten out um and they're going to have some big decisions to
08:47make that have major ramifications for the short medium and long-term future of the franchise
08:51put you on the spot here you just you might not have an answer to this but i think it's
08:55it's the
08:56question any insight into the conversations that took place post locker room clean out because you said
09:03larkin's been a good soldier and they they did have their their tiffed publicly a full year ago
09:08what changed any insight into how the conversations went after the season no i don't like i said this
09:15caught me completely off guard i mean you as you know like what is in my work i haven't even
09:20written
09:20about this as a possibility this summer and i thought it seemed plausible last summer but it caught
09:26me off guard this year it caught me off guard yesterday like i didn't have anything leading up to
09:30this to suggest that uh this might be coming so i was i was on my back foot i'm surprised
09:35and i don't
09:35know what what exactly went down i mean to your point like the conversations at the end of the
09:40you know season press conferences this year had a very different tone than they did a year ago
09:44so uh this was not uh on my radar any idea who would be the captain post dylan larkin
09:52well i think the obvious name is more outsider i think you know he's he's shown a lot
09:56in his young career but uh you know is it a given that there is a captain next year i
10:01guess that's
10:01that's that's another question but i do think whenever the time comes the next captain of the
10:06red wings the obvious answer to that is more outsider uh but it's probably more of a matter of
10:10when uh than anything else and then they're not related but i i do wonder how does this impact
10:17alex to brinkett he's his own man he can make his own decisions but he has a year left on
10:21his contract
10:22any insight as to how the red wings want to approach that and how that situation plays
10:27i wonder the same thing i think that's one of the early ripple effects here is coming into this
10:32off season i think getting alex to bring it signed by july one before he enters that last year of
10:36his
10:36deal looked very important and i think it's still very important but it definitely feels even more like
10:42a fork in the road here now especially as we talk about it are you still keeping kind of the
10:46competitive push for 20 26 27 on or are you stepping into a retool and do you view alex to
10:54brinkett um kind of as someone who is going to i think you know at 28 years old you can
10:59still sign
10:59this guy for seven years and expect a lot of really really good hockey from him i mean there's
11:0420 players in the nhl who scored at his level last year the total production that's really hard to
11:10replace and i think wingers in general especially smaller wingers don't tend to bring you on the trade
11:15market what maybe their production suggests they should and you saw that with what the red wings
11:21had to give up for alex to bring it which was not very much um now granted there's other factors
11:26to
11:27that whereas he want to sign and stuff like that but could come into play here as well so to
11:32me like
11:33i think alex to bring it just became even more important to the detroit red wings because if you
11:37lose dylan larkin you're going to need someone to score your goals and for the last three years alex
11:42the brinkett has been the guy who scores you goals max i could talk hockey with you all day we
11:47are
11:47way late for this it's going to make the summer more fascinating for you people will read your
11:52stuff you'll have the latest in the athletic max boltman thanks for your time hey always gonna take
11:56care it's 97 one
11:58you
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