Six teams are chasing Dylan Larkin, and it could change everything for the Red Wings

Six NHL clubs have poked around Dylan Larkin since June, and the Detroit Red Wings center's name landed back in the rumor mill late last night.

Per David Pagnotta, the Canadiens, Kings, Flyers, Bruins, Hurricanes and Sharks are all on the list of teams that have checked in.

Six teams is a crowd. It also lands three days before Detroit opens the regular season at home against the Rangers on Friday.

Todd McLellan now starts the year with a 34-goal center's name floating through every rink on the schedule.

And the production isn't in question. Larkin finished last season with 67 points in 74 games and a plus-3 rating.

So why the interest? Because he's stacked four straight seasons of at least 30 goals, and centers who do that almost never reach the open market.

The contract is the other hook. His $8,700,000 cap hit runs through 2030-31, which gives any buyer five full seasons of cost certainty.

Five playoff games in 11 seasons is the real Detroit problem

Here's the number that should sting in Detroit. Larkin has dressed for five NHL playoff games career-wise, and all of them came as a rookie in 2015-16.

He turned 30 in July. That's 808 regular-season games, 643 points, and a single playoff series to show for it.

The cap math on the suitors isn't simple either. Los Angeles already carries Drew Doughty and Artemi Panarin at $11,000,000 apiece, plus Adrian Kempe at $10,625,000.

Boston pays David Pastrnak $11,250,000. In Montreal, Kent Hughes has already committed $9,500,000 to Noah Dobson on the blue line.

San Jose already pays Darnell Nurse $9,250,000. Mike Grier's club visits Detroit on October 17, two nights after the Flyers come to town.

Throw in an October 10 road date in Montreal, and Detroit sees half of Pagnotta's list inside the first three weeks of the season.

Every one of those nights, the other bench gets a long look at exactly what it's been asking about. And Horcoff gets to decide whether he keeps picking up the phone.

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