After a failed first attempt, Kent Hughes is closing in on a major trade
Kent Hughes reportedly tried the same package that almost landed Matthew Knies on the Canadiens, and now Dylan Larkin's name is getting attached to Montreal this summer.
According to Arpon Basu on The Basu & Godin Notebook podcast, Hughes went beyond the near-miss Knies deal and shopped a similar offer package to multiple teams this offseason.
The package in question: a prospect, Alex Zharovsky, another prospect, and two first-round picks.
For context, Knies finished the season with 66 points in 79 games for a Toronto team that finished 32-36-14. That's 28th overall in the league. He went -8 in his last five games alone.
Montreal ended the regular season at 48-24-10, sixth overall in the NHL, with 106 points. This isn't a team shopping out of desperation. Hughes is hunting.
Larkin formally requested a trade from Detroit. At 29, with 67 points in 74 games and a $8.7 million cap hit, he's still a genuine top-line center who posts 9 game-winners and produces on the power play.
The problem? Steve Yzerman is not running a fire sale.
Yzerman's price tag could shut Montreal out of the Larkin sweepstakes
The Red Wings finished 41-31-10 with 92 points, ranked 16th overall. That's a team trying to climb back into contention, not dismantle. Basu made it clear on the podcast that Yzerman wants NHL-ready players included, not just draft capital and teenagers.
That changes the math entirely for Montreal. Two first-rounders and a pair of prospects may get you Knies. It probably doesn't get you Larkin, not without putting a real NHLer in the deal.
And that's where it gets uncomfortable for Hughes. His three untouchables are obvious: Cole Caufield posted 51 goals and 88 points this season with a +29 rating. Juraj Slafkovsky put up 73 points across 82 games. Ivan Demidov, on an entry-level deal paying under a million dollars, finished with 62 points as a 20-year-old rookie.
Trading any of those three for a 29-year-old center under a max contract is the kind of move that looks bold on draft night and haunts you by the time his deal expires.
The Knies package was clever precisely because it kept all three untouched. It asked Yzerman to build with youth and picks. That's not his mandate right now.
Basu himself expressed doubt on the Larkin fit, and it's hard to argue with that skepticism. Detroit finishing last in its last 10 games of the season by going 2-6-2 doesn't signal a team willing to reset entirely around prospects and lottery tickets.
Hughes is clearly pushing hard. That part is encouraging. But "pushing hard" and "landing the deal" are two very different things, and the gap between what Montreal is willing to give and what Detroit needs to receive looks real.
Larkin is the kind of player who'd look great beside Caufield. The question is what it actually costs to find out.
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YESTERDAY
JUNE 6, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Mitch Marner | 3 | 1 | 4 | |
| Tomas Hertl | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Jordan Staal | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Shea Theodore | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Sebastian Aho | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Brayden McNabb | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Taylor Hall | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jordan Martinook | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Andrei Svechnikov | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jackson Blake | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jack Eichel | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Brett Howden | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Seth Jarvis | - | 1 | 1 | |
| William Karlsson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Eric Robinson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jaccob Slavin | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Logan Stankoven | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Frederik Andersen | - | - | - | |
| Rasmus Andersson | - | - | - | |
| Ivan Barbashev | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||