Minnesota Bet Its Offseason on Dylan Larkin, and Now Might Miss Twice

The Minnesota Wild had a plan this summer, and it hinged on trading for Dylan Larkin. The Detroit Red Wings captain requested a trade in early June, put Minnesota on his preferred-destination list, and the Wild responded by rearranging other plans. GM Bill Guerin put everything on hold to try to pull Larkin from the Red Wings, letting others sign elsewhere, then watching as everything in Detroit unraveled.

Now, the Wild might miss out twice.

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Most notably, the Wild walked away from the Vincent Trocheck market — a center who directly addressed their two biggest weaknesses, a bottom-3 faceoff percentage and a bottom-10 penalty kill. Guerin believed Larkin was the bigger prize within reach, so Trocheck went to Utah.

Trocheck went to the Mammoth for Sean Durzi, prospect Cole Beaudoin, and a 2027 third-rounder. Utah also snagged Anders Lee, one of Minnesota’s own top free-agent targets. That leaves the Wild without a real fallback option up the middle — not because the market dried up, but because Minnesota chose to put all their eggs in the Larkin basket.

Then Came the Yzerman Removal as Red Wings GM

Steve Yzerman stepping back from Detroit’s GM chair into a senior advisor role threw everything out the window. Yzerman reportedly wasn’t interested in Minnesota’s offer of picks and mid-tier prospects like Charlie Stramel or Danila Yurov, and per Sportsnet’s Nick Kypreos, he’d also asked for Matt Boldy in return — a price Minnesota wasn’t going to pay. But, there was still a window there for negotiations and conversations.

With Yzerman stepping back, that entire process resets.

Even if Detroit’s new front office is ready to deal today, the Wild would still need to restructure their own books before a Larkin trade is even functional.

There’s a version of this that still works out. Larkin remains genuinely interested in Minnesota, and if a new Red Wings GM eventually values futures over win-now pieces, anything is “still possible”. That doesn’t mean it’s likely. Right now, Minnesota has fewer walkable paths to a top-six center than it did in June, and the one path it bet everything on just got a lot more complicated.

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