On Thursday afternoon, a major report from NHL Insider Elliotte Friedman indicating that Detroit Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin requested a trade began making the rounds on social media.
Multiple NHL Insiders have discussed the major shift in Larkin's future aspirations, which he said as recently as late April were wanting to get the Red Wings over the hump and back into Stanley Cup contention.
In the meantime, there have been no official confirmations from Larkin or his representation, or from GM Steve Yzerman.
Yzerman's good friend Darren Pang is now reacting to the reported trade request from Larkin, and harkened back to the mid-90s when rumors circulated that Yzerman himself was on the verge of being traded to the Ottawa Senators.
“I mean, very interesting that it came out the way that it came out,” Pang said while appearing on The Daily Faceoff Live podcast. “My hope would be that it came out internally first, that he and his agent wrote to Steve Yzerman and, at this particular point, I remember Steve — 22 years being a captain — and with Mr. I and Mrs. I, they were very close friends. Just their relationship. And I know there was one point in Steve's career where there was a possibility of moving Steve to Ottawa for Alexei Yashin."
“But Mr. I pulled him aside, with respect, and asked him if it's something he'd want to do. They hadn't won a Stanley Cup in 13 years before he won his first Stanley Cup in Detroit, and with all the respect between the two, he said no, and he wanted to stay part of the equation and win in Detroit. That's what ended up happening."
Pang expressed his hope that Larkin had contacted both Yzerman and the Red Wings ownership before this request was made public.
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“What I'm saying is that I'm hoping that Dylan Larkin's first call was to Steve Yzerman, and then his next call was hopefully to Chris or Marian Ilitch to say why," Pang said. "Because if this is false reporting, which it doesn't sound like it is, that would have been awful."
Pang then concluded by saying he was somewhat taken aback by Larkin's reported trade request considering his Michigan roots and previous open statements of wanting to lead Detroit back to Stanley Cup contention.
“But if it's the legitimate side of it and Dylan Larkin doesn't want to continue in his home state of Michigan with all the growth they've done and all the battling they've done together, I gotta tell you, I'm a little surprised," Pang said. "I would think that he would do what Steve did way back when and say, ‘I'm going to put this team on my shoulders and say we're going to win right here, and I'm going to be a Michigan-born captain and be the guy that leads this team here.’
“To me, it's a little surprising because there are a lot of great parts in Detroit. I don't think that they're that far off; they've proven that........I thought the next moment would be leading the Detroit Red Wings to the playoffs and then eventually hunting down the Stanley Cup in years to come.
But it doesn't look like that's going to happen if this ends up being legitimate.”
Larkin currently ranks 10th all-time in total Red Wings scoring with 643 points in 808 career NHL games.
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