Even NHL executives are stunned by the latest twist in the Dylan Larkin trade
Dylan Larkin asked the Red Wings to trade him, and a chunk of the hockey world reacted like he committed a crime.
That backlash is the exact thing Jonny Lazarus poked at this weekend, and his framing nails the double standard.
His thought experiment went like this. Imagine a star walking into his team's front office demanding a trade to chase a Stanley Cup with a friend.
Would everyone cheer that as player empowerment? Or would the same fans who praise it suddenly call it selfish and disloyal?
Larkin is the real-world version of that question, playing out right now in Detroit.
Lazarus laid the hypothetical out in full, using a star, a contender, and a reunion to expose how selective the outrage really is.
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Teams trade and waive players without asking, every season
Here's the part the angry crowd conveniently forgets. Teams move players without a shred of warning or consent all the time.
Veterans get waived in October. Loyal depth guys get shipped at the deadline for a fourth-round pick. Captains get bought out the day after a handshake about the future. Nobody calls that disloyal. It's just business.
So a player using the small amount of leverage he has? That's the system working as designed, not breaking.
Larkin earned his. He's a 29-year-old captain coming off 34 goals, with 9 game-winners, who told his GM the roster needed help. When the answer disappointed him, he asked out. That's a right, not a betrayal.
It helps that he holds real cards. Larkin is signed through his early thirties, which means Detroit can't simply dump him. He gets a say in his own future for once.
Here's my read, and it's the one Lazarus is circling: the empowerment label is a trap. We celebrate it when we like the player and condemn it when we don't.
Think about your own job. If your company restructured and cut you loose, that's "tough decisions." If you gave two weeks notice for a better gig, suddenly you're disloyal? Same energy.
The Red Wings will trade Larkin when the right deal comes. He'll get blamed for it either way.
Maybe the real question isn't whether Larkin was wrong to ask. It's why we only get angry when the player holds the pen.
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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 | ||||