So Larkin Made Some Interesting Comments.

[Run the Jewels]

His comments on the trade deadline, you can detect some kind of annoyance, but blamed himself for the loss. We just got to win. We have a team we believe in and just gotta do it.



He said what you wanted him to in season. He told the truth after the season about a group he expects to change and didn’t get it done. So basically he cannot win no matter what he does is what I expect the reaction will be to the interview on trade deadline day.

The comments are getting picked up and are generating lots of commentary, so I'm not sure why you are trying to downplay what Larkin said. It's not just me, although I am one of the few people here who doesn't have their head in the sand.

Was Larkin a big Newsy fan? Sure sounded like it at the end of last season. Larkin was waxing poetic about how much he enjoyed last season. He said Newsy was even keel and I guess that's something Dylan really liked. It wouldn't shock me in the slightest if he was upset about losing Lalonde.

 

[Henkka]

MOD

Damn, he was just honest guy and I respect him of being that.

Nothing has really changed. Let's move on for the next season. Everyone can be better, we will get new players, we will insert more kids in the lineup. We have a good coach.

We will stay on the plan.

 

[SCD]

People are underestimating that nobody wants to come play for Detroit right now. Yzerman had to overpay and take what he could get to fill holes. It’s not like he had a list of defensemen and Holl was at the top. The hope was this roster could get us to respectability and in turn more attractive to FA

I understand you don’t just give guys away like Larkin cause they annoy you but I’m siding with Yzerman every time. Larkin didn’t pick this team up from the depths of despair the management did

It is not just the team, but also the city that turns players off. Most players are unaware of what suburban Detroit has to offer. Not all cities have income taxes, either.

 

[The Zetterberg Era]

The comments are getting picked up and are generating lots of commentary, so I'm not sure why you are trying to downplay what Larkin said. It's not just me, although I am one of the few people here who doesn't have their head in the sand.

Was Larkin a big Newsy fan? Sure sounded like it at the end of last season. Larkin was waxing poetic about how much he enjoyed last season. He said Newsy was even keel and I guess that's something Dylan really liked. It wouldn't shock me in the slightest if he was upset about losing Lalonde.

His solemn press conference about Newsy and the team before Christmas likely got him fired. We have referenced it in this thread. Probably the reason for this one, trying to spark action.

At the end of last season they missed the playoffs on a tiebreaker. There was reason to be optimistic. Then the summer failure, waiting when the writing was on the wall for Newsy to be fired. Use last years press conference not this years to make your point. Use this conference to make your point about what he should have said at the trade deadline conference instead of that one. Okay, I get your point. Until he walks in and demands a trade he isn’t going anywhere.

The Red Wings don’t talk a lot, you might notice on the main board they have been beating on this team for two years, the national media has also been critical of Yzerman. This fits a narrative they have been waiting on.

Again I want all parties to look in the mirror and get better. We were better under McLellan but we need to get better. We need to push for more, we need to demand more, he is laying that down.

If Yzerman has a problem, come out and answer questions. Go look at his press clippings after 93’ & 94’ though and realize he would be standing in a glass house. Leaders are allowed to be frustrated and honest, where do we go from here is far more important than continuing to blow it up in my opinion.

 

[SirloinUB]

I'd be shocked if Yzerman took issue with anything Larkin said.

 

[Frk It]

I don’t know, I just find all of this very frustrating as a fan.

This is why I was really disappointed we weren’t more aggressive last off-season.

The vibes seemed so great for that chase to end the 23/24 season and we had real momentum.

But now?

We are like a sail boat out there with no wind. Maybe the wind will pick up again, or maybe not.

I think from a momentum/morale standpoint, you almost have to make some kind of splash this summer.

 

[schuelma24]

I don’t know, I just find all of this very frustrating as a fan.

This is why I was really disappointed we weren’t more aggressive last off-season.

The vibes seemed so great for that chase to end the 23/24 season and we had real momentum.

But now?

We are like a sail boat out there with no wind. Maybe the wind will pick up again, or maybe not.

I think from a momentum/morale standpoint, you almost have to make some kind of splash this summer.

I've said it before - Yzerman almost ensured that last summer/this year was going to be treading water because he had enough bad contracts on the books plus having to make sure he could sign Ray and Mo long term meant he didn't have nearly enough space to be active this past offseason.

I hope and expect a different story this year...

 

[Rzombo4 prez]

I've said it before - Yzerman almost ensured that last summer/this year was going to be treading water because he had enough bad contracts on the books plus having to make sure he could sign Ray and Mo long term meant he didn't have nearly enough space to be active this past offseason.

I hope and expect a different story this year...

Or good players don't want to sign here while we are bad....

 

[Frk It]

Or good players don't want to sign here while we are bad....

Washington finished with the same amount of points us last year and got swept in 1st round of the playoffs and still found a way to add Matt Roy and Chychrun to their team last summer.

 

[FMichael]

Larkin is injured, Copp is injured, what exactly was Yzerman supposed to do with his top two centers being in such poor shape? Scoring line centers don't come cheap.

It's three years in a row where the team missed the playoffs within the final week. It's a league that's based entirely on parity and the room had their shot. If the room is whining that they couldn't win one or two more games, NHL players have become unbelievably soft.

Here's a Larkin quote at the end of the season after trading Bert and Hronek at the deadline.


We've gone from actual leadership to complaining about how Larkin doesn't have enough support.

Well after last season getting rid of Lalonde would have been a good start.

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

Washington finished with the same amount of points us last year and got swept in 1st round of the playoffs and still found a way to add Matt Roy and Chychrun to their team last summer.

Chychrun was traded to the Caps initially, then signed an 8 year deal with an AAV of $9 million.

Roy I wouldn’t mind having. I don’t know if 6 years was longer than Yzerman wanted to commit to it if Roy preferred the Cals or what.

 

[deca guard]

WINGEDWHEEL POD CHIMES IN :

 

[Winger98]

Chychrun was traded to the Caps initially, then signed an 8 year deal with an AAV of $9 million.

Roy I wouldn’t mind having. I don’t know if 6 years was longer than Yzerman wanted to commit to it if Roy preferred the Cals or what.

The caps had also made the playoffs 8/9 years prior to that and still had some small drawing cards like Ovi and Carlson. I wouldn't be shocked at all if anyone preferred the Caps to end their career with, providing Florida or Colorado weren't knocking at their door.

 

[Oddbob]

Team has faded badly for three years in a row.

Feb 25-Mar 25, 2023: 3 wins, 12 losses
Feb 29-Apr 11, 2024: 5 wins, 15 losses
Feb 27-Mar 27, 2025: 3 wins, 11 losses

It's always someone else's fault.

And the team has the same faults in all of those 3 seasons. Not a good team. One player can't will a team to play well on their own unless they are McDavid level and even then it would be hard. Blaming Larkin alone is really lame.

 

[Oddbob]

You claimed Yzerman shouldn't be mortgaging the future. Nobody claimed he should. I provided some examples of low cost acquisitions that played well down the stretch.

I'm not sure what the rest of your post is about.

Not to mention that there were lots of lower cost improvements he could have made that booted Holl out of the lineup and never did. Someone semi competent would have made a huge difference on our blueline.

 

[Run the Jewels]

And the team has the same faults in all of those 3 seasons. Not a good team. One player can't will a team to play well on their own unless they are McDavid level and even then it would be hard. Blaming Larkin alone is really lame.

We're talking about missing by 1 or 2 games, not 10 or 15 points. So please settle down with the suggestion this was some massive mountain to climb and we needed McDavid to win another game or two, it's embarrassing.

• Detroit was up 7 points on Washington on Feb 27, 2024 and Detroit had a +50 goal differential at that time! Detroit's goal differential slipped to +9 when they lost the tirebreaker after losing 15 out of 20 games.
• Detroit was 7 points up on Montreal on Feb 23, 2025 and Detroit had a +19 goal differential. Montreal finished with 5 more points and Detroit slipped to a +1 goal differential while losing 11 of 14 games down the stretch.

So this team can compete just fine until March, then the wheels fall off. It's happened again and again. Larkin was out of the lineup with an injury last season and supposedly played with injuries this year, which is great, but missing Copp made things challenging as Kasper ramped up.

I'm fine with saying Larkin and Copp being injured hurt the team, but you can't have it both ways and say Larkin is right to criticize Yzerman for not being active at the trade deadline, when the cost would have been prohibitive - by your own admission a 1C like Larkin can't do it all on his own, and our 2C was lost for the season in February.

So again, I don't know how you support being a buyer at the trade deadline when you are missing key players, have a historically bad PK, and are in the middle of your annual face plant. It's sheer lunacy.

 

[Henkka]

Detroit was up 7 points on Washington on Feb 27, 2024 and Detroit had a +50 goal differential at that time! Detroit's goal differential slipped to +9 when they lost the tirebreaker after losing 15 out of 20 games.

Did you mean these goals differentials as Detroit versus Washington and Detroit versus Montreal? Because Detroit's goal differentials weren't that good.

• Detroit was 7 points up on Montreal on Feb 23, 2025 and Detroit had a +19 goal differential. Montreal finished with 5 more points and Detroit slipped to a +1 goal differential while losing 11 of 14 games down the stretch.

So this team can compete just fine until March, then the wheels fall off. It's happened again and again.

 

[Run the Jewels]

Did you mean these goals differentials as Detroit versus Washington and Detroit versus Montreal? Because Detroit's goal differentials weren't that good.

Yes

Feb 2025
Detroit -12
Montreal - 31
GD: Detroit +19

Feb 2024
Detroit: +22
Washington: -28
GD: Detroit +50

 

[RRhoads]

I have said it before, and I will repeat it. The playing style of the team with all the dump and chase is really taxing. It's no big surprise that they come out flat in March.

The fix for this is "simple", we need to be better in our own zone, so we can have better breakouts and better transitions. More often than not, the players slow the play down to a crawl, and the oppositions can get positioned defensively, resulting that we lose the puck and have to spend energy on winning it back.

 

[minimal]

I have said it before, and I will repeat it. The playing style of the team with all the dump and chase is really taxing. It's no big surprise that they come out flat in March.

The fix for this is "simple", we need to be better in our own zone, so we can have better breakouts and better transitions. More often than not, the players slow the play down to a crawl, and the oppositions can get positioned defensively, resulting that we lose the puck and have to spend energy on winning it back.

I think underlying this is that Detroit is not a fast skating team. It's why they've had so much trouble with teams like Buffalo, Ottawa, Montreal at points, not to mention playoff teams like Colorado, etc: it's too easy to skate them into the ground. That will hopefully change as the younger players filter in.

 

[SirloinUB]

We're talking about missing by 1 or 2 games, not 10 or 15 points. So please settle down with the suggestion this was some massive mountain to climb and we needed McDavid to win another game or two, it's embarrassing.

• Detroit was up 7 points on Washington on Feb 27, 2024 and Detroit had a +50 goal differential at that time! Detroit's goal differential slipped to +9 when they lost the tirebreaker after losing 15 out of 20 games.
• Detroit was 7 points up on Montreal on Feb 23, 2025 and Detroit had a +19 goal differential. Montreal finished with 5 more points and Detroit slipped to a +1 goal differential while losing 11 of 14 games down the stretch.

So this team can compete just fine until March, then the wheels fall off. It's happened again and again. Larkin was out of the lineup with an injury last season and supposedly played with injuries this year, which is great, but missing Copp made things challenging as Kasper ramped up.

I'm fine with saying Larkin and Copp being injured hurt the team, but you can't have it both ways and say Larkin is right to criticize Yzerman for not being active at the trade deadline, when the cost would have been prohibitive - by your own admission a 1C like Larkin can't do it all on his own, and our 2C was lost for the season in February.

So again, I don't know how you support being a buyer at the trade deadline when you are missing key players, have a historically bad PK, and are in the middle of your annual face plant. It's sheer lunacy.

Breaking news: Stronger terms separate from weaker teams as the season goes on.

 

[Henkka]

I have said it before, and I will repeat it. The playing style of the team with all the dump and chase is really taxing. It's no big surprise that they come out flat in March.

Hmm... they come out flat after an All Star/4 Nations -break and having rest.

I don't buy it.

 

[RRhoads]

Hmm... they come out flat after an All Star/4 Nations -break and having rest.

I don't buy it.

They were flat before that

 

[lilidk]

Larkin should talk first to Yzerman before bring that thing up.
So, ether trade him and get prospect like Willander+ 2026 first, or make our crybaby Capitan happy, bring back Bertuzzi and trade our 2025 first for guy like Byram

 

[Run the Jewels]

They were flat before that

They flat out sucked from the drop. Were terrible on November 1st and were terrible when they let Newsy go. Made it back into playoff contention before Larkin got injured at 4 Nations and Copp got injured.

This team was screaming 'please do not buy at the trade deadline'.