Dylan Larkin And The Red Wings Are Having Agonizing Breakup Sex On Live TV

Dylan Larkin is still a Red Wing, even though he doesn't want to be. His offseason trade request, arriving after 11 seasons with the club and a mere five playoff games (all as a rookie), symbolized the franchise's inability to shift out of neutral and forced fans to stare the worst-case scenario in the face: After all these years of waiting, maybe the Wings remain closer to the No. 1 draft pick than a playoff run. As the team's second-best goal-scorer and top-line center, Larkin would be impossible to replace quickly, so him deciding that he's given up on this project and would rather just get to the postseason with a contender now that he's in his 30s is a frustrating setback. It's an issue, too, that has yet to be resolved as the Red Wings wrap their first week of regular season play. The list of teams that Larkin is reportedly willing to waive his no-movement clause for is tiny and elite (not to mention cap-crunched), and Detroit, which doesn't even have a non-interim GM at the moment, has yet to swing a deal. Consequently, Larkin was stripped of his team captaincy, and he got lustily booed by fans when his name was announced on opening night. He sat out the first two losses of the season with injury while the Wings allowed five goals over four-and-a-half periods before they even got on the board. And when he returned to the ice in front of a sad-looking turnout on Tuesday night against Ottawa, those who chose to voice their opinion were generally not happy to see him. But this game played out differently than the Wings' previous poor showings. While Ottawa got the first goal not even three minutes in, the men in red mounted a meaningful response, scoring four unanswered en route to a 5-3 win. And it was Larkin who played the biggest role of anyone—not as a pariah, but as a talented forward who has consistently injected at least a little bit of light into otherwise dark passages.

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