Wild Is Top Pick in Land Dylan Larkin – Hockey Writers – Minnesota Wild

The Minnesota Wild’s offseason continues, and it just got more interesting on Thursday, June 4 when it was announced that Dylan Larkin of the Detroit Red Wings has requested a trade to Detroit, and listed three teams he would like to go to, and the Wild is one of them. It was a shock to many NHL fans since he is the captain of the team and has been with the team for 11 seasons; his entire career.

Of course, many teams are interested in Larkin; he’s a solid center with a few seasons left, and sometimes a change of scenery is just what a player needs to step up his game. As most know, the Wild are in the market for a center, and in this article, we’ll take a look at why he could be tough.

The Wild Could Use Larkin

The Wild have needed someone to fill that starting center role for years, and while they’ve tried with different players over the seasons, no one has completely filled that role. The biggest problem with their institutions has been the great work of that position; by winning faceoffs, or rather the lack of them, and losing them wins. Larkin could be a solution for the Wild and help their other centers start to go in the right direction.

Although his points are not very high, considering the statistics of this past season, he would have been sitting in the third place among the Wild players with his 67 points; the only players with more are Matt Boldy with 85 points and Kirill Kaprizov with 89 points. While Larkin’s scoring is important, so is his value at the faceoff dot.

Larkin had the third most appearances of the regular season; he was just behind Nico Hischier and Jordan Staal. Hischer took 1,808 faceoffs and won 55.8 percent of those, while runner-up Staal took 1,512 and won 55.5 percent. That left Larkin, who took 1,492 faceoffs and won 52.9 percent. His percentage is down a bit compared to the top two, but it’s still a solid number. In addition, the Wild had only two centers take more than 1,000 faceoffs in an entire season, and Larkin’s percentage was higher than both of them.

The only regular center on the Wild’s roster to win more than 50 percent of their faceoffs was Nico Sturm, but he only took 372 faceoffs all season. The Wild need someone who can win faceoffs regularly throughout the season, and Larkin looks like the man for the job if they can figure out a way to get him here. However, if anyone can do it, Wild general manager Bill Guerin has proven he can make things happen, a prime example being the Quinn Hughes trade.

Wild Can Trade

Obviously, the Wild could use Larkin on their roster, but what exactly will it take to get him here? As everyone noticed, and the pair of Michael Russo and Joe Smith of The Athletic pointed out in a recent article, “The Wild don’t have a ton of attention-grabbing assets left after dealing Marco Rossi, Liam Öhgren, Zeev Buium and the 2026 first-round pick for Hughes,” (‘Do the Wildkins, Yes want to trade Dyersk without a doubt? Smith,’ Athletic, 06/05/2026).

Of course, that’s not a criticism because the Hughes trade clearly paid off and is likely the biggest reason Larkin would consider coming to Minnesota. Russo agreed on that point, as he pointed out that Hughes is one of Larkin’s friends along with fellow Wild players and Team USA gold medalists Brock Faber and Matt Boldy. However, even though he may have friends on the team, the Wild should be willing to stop moving him here. Much of the talk about who the Wild could deal has included Danila Yurov and possibly Jesper Wallstedt.

However, with Filip Gustavsson undergoing offseason hip surgery and the fact that he may not recover in time for the season to begin, keeping Wallstedt is probably best, at least for the start of the season. The Red Wings will want more than one player for Larkin, so if the Wild offer Yurov, they will probably also have to give up someone like Ryan Hartman, who has more NHL experience and can give the offense some edge, which Russo thinks the Red Wings can use and mentioned in the article above.

Hartman will be a free agent after next season, and is one of the only assets the Wild currently have that the Red Wings may want to part with. He has a list of 10 teams that didn’t trade up according to PuckPedia, but it’s hard to say whether or not Detroit will be on the list. While Jonas Brodin and Joel Eriksson Ek may be scraps, their injury woes would cause any team to speculate on a trade for them, even with their solid play when healthy.

Without Yurov and possibly Hartman, Detroit will likely be looking for more in terms of future prospects and possibly future draft picks. On a player like Larkin, and in the same article mentioned above, Russo said, “Obviously, Guerin will not be afraid to trade the future of the deal, or the young center Danila Yurov or the prospects Charlie Stramel, Hunter Haight, or Adam Benák. It will be interesting to see how much it takes for the team to get Larkin, and if Minnesota will be the winner.”

Wild Can Reverse

Whenever a team makes a trade, there is always a chance that it might backfire and not be worth what the team gave up. It’s happened many times, and every team has taken a risk that hasn’t worked out in their favor over their franchise history. If the Wild trade Larkin, the same could happen to them.

Although Larkin is an elite player, he is not guaranteed to make the draft. Another problem is missing out on another player who would have been available if they had been waiting. Again, that’s always a risk and part of the deal, but luckily, the Wild aren’t the type of team to make a rash decision.

They’re working hard to consider all options before making their final offer, and there’s still a good chance that even if the Wild make an offer, Detroit won’t take it. However, if the Wild can get Larkin, their chances of having a center like Auston Matthews will be off the table, but that’s also if Matthews chooses to leave Toronto. There are a lot of ifs going into this offseason, and it’s hard to say exactly what will happen or who the Wild might actually offer.

Still, the Wild have some decisions to make, whether or not they can make a big enough offer for Larkin. It will be an interesting season for many Wild fans to see what moves they make and how they can improve their team next season.