Wild Are a Leading Candidate to Land Dylan Larkin – The Hockey Writers – Minnesota Wild

The Minnesota Wild’s offseason continues to move along, and it just became much more interesting on Thursday, June 4 when it was announced that the Detroit Red Wings’ Dylan Larkin had requested a trade out of Detroit, and he listed three teams he would be willing to go to, and the Wild are one of them. It came as a bit of a shock to most NHL fans since he is the team’s captain and he’s been with the team for 11 seasons; his whole career.

Of course, a lot of teams are interested in Larkin; he’s a strong center who still has quite a few seasons left, and sometimes a change of scenery is exactly what a player needs to really level up their game. As most know, the Wild are in the market for a center, and in this article, we’ll look at why he would be a strong fit.

Wild Could Use Larkin

For years, the Wild have needed someone to fill that number one center role, and while they’ve tried with different players over the seasons, no one has filled that role completely. The biggest issue with their centers has been the main job of that position; winning faceoffs, or rather the lack of, and it’s cost them wins. Larkin could be the Wild’s fix and possibly help their other centers start heading in the right direction. 

Although his points aren’t the highest, when looking at the stats for this past season, he would’ve sat in third among Wild players with his 67 points; the only players with more were Matt Boldy with 85 points and Kirill Kaprizov with 89 points. While Larkin scoring goals is important, his value on the faceoff dot is as well.

Larkin had the third most faceoff opportunities through 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 second-place Staal took 1,512 and won 55.5 percent. That left Larkin, who took 1,492 faceoffs and won 52.9 percent. His percentage dropped off a bit compared to the top two, but it’s still a strong number. Plus, the Wild only had two centers who took over 1,000 faceoffs throughout the season, and Larkin’s percentage was higher than both of theirs.

The only regular center in the Wild’s lineup who won more than 50 percent of their faceoffs was Nico Sturm, but he only took 372 faceoffs throughout the season. The Wild need someone who can win faceoffs consistently throughout the season, and Larkin looks like the man for the job if they can swing a way to get him here. However, if anyone can do it, Wild general manager Bill Guerin has proved he can make things happen, with the main example being the Quinn Hughes trade.

Wild Can Make a Trade

Obviously, the Wild could use Larkin on their roster, but what’s it truly going to take to get him here? As everyone has seen, 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 assests left after dealing Marco Rossi, Liam Öhgren, Zeev Buium and a 2026 first-round pick for Hughes,” (‘Will the Wild pursue Dylan Larkin after trade request? Yes, without a doubt: Ask Russo and Smith,’ The Athletic, 06/05/2026).

Of course, that’s not a critique because the Hughes trade has clearly paid off and is likely a huge reason Larkin would consider coming to Minnesota. Russo agreed in that article, as he pointed out that Hughes is one of Larkin’s friends alongside other Wild players and Team USA gold medalists, Brock Faber and Matt Boldy. However, while he may have friends on the team, the Wild have to be willing to give up to get him here. A lot of the talk about who the Wild could offer up has involved Danila Yurov and possibly Jesper Wallstedt.

However, with Filip Gustavsson having offseason hip surgery and the fact that he may not be recovered in time for the season to start, keeping Wallstedt is probably for the best, at least for the beginning of the season. The Red Wings are going to want more than just one player for Larkin, so if the Wild do give up Yurov, they’ll likely also have to give up someone like Ryan Hartman, who has more NHL experience and who could provide some offense with an edge, which Russo also thought the Red Wings could use and mentioned in the above article.  

Hartman will be a free agent after next season, plus he’s also one of the only assets the Wild have currently that they could part with and that the Red Wings may want. He does have a 10-team no-trade list according to PuckPedia, but it’s hard to say if Detroit would be on the list or not. While Jonas Brodin and Joel Eriksson Ek may be possible pieces, their injury issues would likely cause any team to second-guess trading for them, even with the strong play they have when healthy. 

Outside of Yurov and possibly Hartman, Detroit would probably be looking for a bit more in terms of an up-and-coming prospect and maybe even a future draft pick. For a player like Larkin, and in the same article mentioned above, Russo stated, “Obviously, Guerin wouldn’t be afraid to trade future firsts in this deal, nor young center Danila Yurov or prospects Charlie Stramel, Hunter Haight, or Adam Benák.” It’ll be interesting to see how much it takes for a team to get Larkin, and if Minnesota will be the winner. 

Wild Could Backfire

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

While Larkin is a great player, it’s not guaranteed he’ll fit into the system. The other problem is missing out on a different player that could’ve been available if they had waited. 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 work hard to consider every option 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 were to get Larkin, their chances of a center like Auston Matthews would be off the table, but that’s also if Matthews would choose to leave Toronto. There are a lot of ifs with this offseason, and it’s hard to say what exactly would happen or who exactly the Wild would offer.

Regardless, the Wild have some decisions to make, whether they’re able to make a good enough offer for Larkin or not. It’ll be a fun season for a lot of Wild fans to see what moves they make and how they can improve their team for next season.