Free Press: Dylan Larkin trade may need multiple teams to get Detroit a top-line center

Dylan Larkin's trade request is hanging over the Red Wings tonight, and Detroit still has to drop the puck in Vancouver.

Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press laid out the problem Tuesday. What Detroit needs back, she wrote, is essentially someone just like Larkin: a center who can serve on the top line.

Good luck shopping for that. St. James suggested it may well take a multi-team trade to leave every party content.

Now it falls to Shawn Horcoff, running the front office on an interim basis. That's a heavy first file for anyone holding a temporary title.

Picture selling your only car when you still need to drive to work the next morning. Detroit can't move its top-line center without another one pulling into the driveway.

The 30-year-old carries an $8,700,000 cap hit, the biggest on the roster. Any partner taking that on will want to send money back, and that's where a third team starts making sense.

Where's the leverage? He has one goal and five points through seven games, with an even rating, while Detroit has played nine.

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Red Wings hit Vancouver still searching for a first road win

Alex DeBrincat is the one carrying the offense right now. He has six goals and a +9 rating, numbers that make him the most dangerous forward on the bench.

The standings offer no cushion. Detroit sits 3-3-3, last in its division, and both road games so far, in Montreal and Seattle, ended in shootout losses.

Tonight's opponent should help. Vancouver has lost eight straight and owns a -18 goal differential, exactly the kind of team a shaky road club needs to see.

Then it gets harder. Calgary follows Saturday, and Edmonton waits Monday with a 7-1-1 record.

The forward group is thin too. Marco Kasper is on injured reserve with an upper-body injury, expected out until at least Oct. 29, and Mason Appleton sits on the same timeline with an undisclosed issue.

Elsewhere up front, Andrew Copp is at minus-6 and Michael Rasmussen at minus-5, with one goal between them through nine games.

Here's the blunt part. An interim GM shouldn't be the one trading the face of the franchise for picks and prospects, not for a team sitting 24th overall.

A deal like this shapes the next five years. And the man signing off on it may not be in the chair for the next five months.

Todd McLellan has to coach through all of it. The noise rides along on every flight and into every morning skate until Horcoff finds a deal or decides there isn't one.

So does Detroit wait for a permanent hire, or does a player who has asked to go force the issue first?

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