Detroit's tumultuous offseason just got a real receipt attached to it, and it involves a player the Red Wings actually had a deal in place for.
The chaos started when word broke that captain Dylan Larkin had requested a trade, a demand that came after just 3 years into his 8 year contract. That request hasn't resolved into an actual trade yet, but it did cost former GM Steve Yzerman his job.
Many believe Larkin's frosty relationship with Yzerman played at least some role in that decision, a move that may have been the right call for keeping Larkin in the fold long term.
But according to a Detroit Free Press report from Carlos Monarrez, that timing had a real, unintended cost attached to it.
"On the day Yzerman's removal was announced, assistant GM Shawn Horcoff had a deal in place with Anthony Mantha, but it fell through while Chris Ilitch deliberated," Monarrez reported.
Detroit's offense already took a real hit this summer
Mantha ended up signing with New Jersey instead, at a genuinely team-friendly $4,750,000 cap hit after posting 33 goals and 31 assists for 64 points in 81 games last season.
Given how aggressively the market moved for scoring wingers this summer, that number looks like real value, exactly the kind of contract Detroit could have used.
This stings more given what Detroit's offense already lost this offseason. Patrick Kane and James van Riemsdyk both left in free agency, and that duo combined for 88 points for the Red Wings last season.
A player like Mantha, at that price point, would have been a real, direct answer to some of that lost production.
That gap becomes even more consequential if Larkin's trade request is eventually honored before the season starts, stripping out even more offense from a roster that's already thinner up front than it was a year ago.
None of this means Detroit's front office made the wrong call letting Yzerman go. But it's a real, tangible cost of the timing, a genuine 30-goal scorer at a bargain price slipping away during a moment of organizational limbo.
Did the Red Wings make the right call letting Yzerman go, even if it cost them Anthony Mantha?
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