Dylan Larkin doesn't seem to care about his legacy in Detroit and it's a shame

The Red Wings captain's trade request is short-sighted and has way more risk than possible reward. This will follow him forever.

“I don’t want to go crazy. I just want to go.”

The speaker was Bob Lanier.

It was January 1980 and Lanier, the Pistons’ oft-injured superstar center, wanted to be traded. He didn’t make the decision lightly. Bob was the NBA’s first overall draft pick in 1970, selected by the Pistons out of St. Bonaventure. The Pistons were the only team he’d played for in the league.

But in the decade of the 1970s, the Pistons were, to be blunt, a shitshow.

A revolving door of coaches. Team disharmony. Small crowds at Cobo Arena. Cameo appearances in the playoffs, when they qualified. Then a move to the cavernous Silverdome in 1978, which didn’t do much to make the house look any more populated.

The final straw for Big Bob, though, was when Dickie Vitale came in and immediately proved to be the bull in the Pistons’ China shop.

It looked like a match made in heaven when Vitale was hired in May 1978 because he and Lanier were business partners.

It only took about a year for Bob to see that Dickie was unhinged and flailing in his dual roles as coach and player personnel guy.

A badly thought out trade with the Celtics in 1979 for fellow big man Bob McAdoo gave Lanier brief hope, but beyond the two bigs, the Pistons roster was bereft of genuine NBA talent.

By December, with Vitale fired in November and newly-hired GM Jack McCloskey fresh on board, Lanier had had enough. The team was going nowhere—scraping the bottom of the league standings. McAdoo was hurt—which would be a common thing with him in Detroit.

So Bob Lanier went to the new GM and requested a trade.

Lanier was a complicated man. The late great sportswriter Jerry Green called Bob “Othello,” the Moor of Detroit—after the large, tragic figure in Shakespearean writing.

The trade request was easy from a wins/losses standpoint. The Pistons were terrible and their future bleak, thanks to Vitale trading away the team’s next two 1st-round draft picks in the McAdoo transaction. There had simply been too much turmoil and upheaval in the organization for years.

But from a personal standpoint, Bob Lanier didn’t really want to leave Detroit. He was dug in. He established roots in the Motor City. The fans loved him. He wanted very badly to win with the Pistons.

The trade request was very public and almost daily the local papers ran updates on the status. McCloskey burned up the phone lines but he didn’t want to get rooked in any deal. It was a delicate situation, to say the least.

“My primary consideration was to get a 1st round draft pick,” Jack told Jerry Green in a retrospect. “The cupboard was bare there.”

The Milwaukee Bucks emerged as the leading candidate to land Lanier. The Bucks were finished with their rebuild and were seen as a title contender sooner than later.

Meanwhile, Lanier continued to play for the Pistons, unhappily. The team kept losing under interim coach Richie Adubato.

Finally, in early-February, the trade was finalized and announced.

Bob Lanier to the Bucks for a 1st round pick and center Kent Benson.

Jack McCloskey got rooked anyway—but he did get his coveted 1st round pick.

Pistons fans were on Lanier’s side the whole way. They never looked at him as a “traitor” or a “coward.” In fact, many Pistons fans turned into Bucks fans during Milwaukee’s playoff run—and for the next few seasons while the Pistons were still bad and the Bucks contended.

The fans wanted Bob Lanier to win an NBA championship very badly.

“As good as things might turn out in Milwaukee—and they’re a contender—I wish it could have happened in Detroit,” Lanier told the press after the trade was announced.

To this day, Bob Lanier’s image in Detroit is not at all tarnished by his request to be traded. The fans continue to see it as a superstar wanting out from the pall of a poverty franchise.

I mentioned “traitor” and “coward” on purpose because those words have been freely tossed around by Red Wings fans after the news broke last week that captain Dylan Larkin wants out of Detroit.

Dylan Larkin, the homegrown one. A player drenched in Michigan from the moment he first put on skates. Until last week, it would have been almost unimaginable to see Larkin play for any other NHL franchise—despite some fans’ frustration and feeble suggestions that he be traded.

Larkin, though, in recent years has also been attached to the Red Wings’ playoff drought like a ball and chain. He is the captain, after all—and the empty gazes, deer-in-the-headlights looks and uninspiring words have grown on the fans like barnacles, or mold.

The trade request has been a grenade tossed into the Red Wings’ offseason plans.

My opinion?

Dylan Larkin hasn’t thought this one through. And, unlike with Bob Lanier, this WILL ruin his legacy in Detroit. Forever.

The news gets worse—and more cringey.

It was reported that Larkin’s three preferred teams (he has a no-trade clause) are, in no particular order: the Florida Panthers, the Minnesota Wild and the Vegas Golden Knights.

Ha!

Not only is this “list” ridiculously short, it gives GM Steve Yzerman not much to work with.

First, the Panthers?? Yzerman isn’t going to trade with a division rival, and nor should he.

The Wild and the Golden Knights may not even want him or need him.

But above all, this mini-list is laughable in its naked desire to go only to what Larkin sees as “Cup-ready” teams.

He hasn’t earned such consideration.

He’s 29, not 39. This isn’t future Hall of Famer Raymond Bourque chasing a Cup in his twilight years, when he got traded to the Avs in 2000.

But the Red Wings “failed” Larkin!!

How so?

By drafting him? By making him the team captain? By giving him a large contract extension?

Oh—because of the playoff drought and imperfect roster construction under Stevie’s watch.

Tough.

Stevie was drafted at age 18 in 1983. He became a 21 year-old captain in 1986.

He was 32 years old and a 14-year NHL veteran before he lifted the Cup in 1997.

In between being made captain and winning the whole enchilada, Yzerman played for six different coaches and saw several roster turnovers. He was even being considered to be traded (against his will) to the Ottawa Senators in 1995 when Scotty Bowman was in charge.

Not once did Yzerman request a trade. Didn’t even consider it, as far as I know.

Now, this isn’t to absolve Yzerman the GM from blame. His rebuild has been moving on square wheels. That’s true.

But the Red Wings have hardly “failed” Dylan Larkin.

Again, Larkin is still in his prime. He’s been, to be fair, a decent but not great captain. He seems to lack fire. He whined in 2025 that Yzerman did little at the trade deadline—which was true, but those concerns should have been addressed in private. And that should not have been used as an excuse as to why the team folded in March yet again.

Steve Yzerman didn’t appreciate that public airing of dirty laundry at all.

This is a messy situation, to put it lightly.

Larkin’s “list” of teams he’s willing to play for is comical. Maybe tragicomic, to be more accurate. Still, it looks like he and Yzerman are headed for a showdown the likes we haven’t seen between active player and management since maybe Grant Hill and Joe Dumars in 2000.

Yzerman is in a pickle here. He doesn’t have to trade Larkin, just because Dylan requested it. But not doing so is fraught with risk, too.

You’d have an unhappy player—the captain, no less—playing in front of an arena full of Larkin haters at LCA every home game. Tell me that wouldn’t be a distraction for his teammates.

Just strip Larkin of the “C.”

I’ve seen this bandied about casually, as if NHL teams routinely do this. They don’t, and they shouldn’t. It’s a “scorched Earth” approach that has elements of public humiliation, poisoning the well and is a PR nightmare for the Red Wings around the league.

Yes, Yzerman has a dilemma. Yet Larkin’s cute little list is really not giving his boss many options.

But here’s why I don’t think Dylan has thought this through.

His thinking is, I believe, terribly short-sighted.

While Yzerman has lots of risk, so does Larkin.

First, there are absolutely no guarantees that a trade out of Detroit will result in a Stanley Cup elsewhere. See Dionne, Marcel.

Second, there’s no coming back from this. Larkin can’t “undo” a trade request. The fans—even the ones not enamored with Yzerman as GM—have almost unanimously turned against him. Detroit sports fans don’t take rejection easily. It’s one thing for them to suggest trading Larkin; it’s quite another for Larkin himself to suggest trading Larkin.

Dylan Larkin’s good name in Detroit—and in the state of Michigan—has now been irreparably damaged. The feel good narrative of local boy playing for his hometown NHL team and becoming its captain is now ruined. Forever.

And for what? A possible chance to win the Stanley Cup? Let’s talk about that.

Larkin might get his Cup. Good for him if that happens.

He still won’t be able to show his face around Detroit anymore. He would be better off living anywhere else.

Look how the fans treated the legacy of Sergei Fedorov after Sergei left. Look how the Red Wings treated him for years.

But at least Sergei had his hands in 3 Cups in Detroit.

Dylan Larkin hasn’t won a dadgum thing as a Red Wing. His captaincy isn’t helped by following the likes of Yzerman, Lidstrom and Zetterberg. But he hasn’t won a thing.

Except for an Olympic gold medal, which is another thing that riled up Red Wings fans this year. Even that came with baggage and a perception that Larkin laid down for the Red Wings post-Olympics.

If Larkin wants out, I suppose that’s his prerogative. But to limit his desired destinations to just three teams, and all Cup contenders, suggests a hubris that is greater than what he’s earned in the NHL.

Steve Yzerman has a dilemma. He’ll get past it.

Dylan Larkin has destroyed his legacy in Detroit. He’ll never get past it.

Big difference.