Eleven years, and a sweater that looks different
There will be a blank patch on Dylan Larkin’s sweater Thursday morning.
The Red Wings center is still reporting to training camp at Little Caesars Arena. He said so himself in a Friday statement. The C, though, is gone. Detroit followed by announcing no captain will be named for 2026-27 at all.
“Over the past few weeks, the Red Wings front office and I have had several in-depth conversations. I appreciated the honest talks, and I’ll be at camp with my teammates,” Larkin said. “Once the new leadership is in place, we’ll talk more about the direction of the team.”
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Nobody in Detroit is making the call
That is the whole problem in a sentence.
Steve Yzerman stepped down as general manager in July and slid into a senior advisory role. The chair has been empty since. Larkin asked for a trade at the end of last season and handed over a list of clubs he would waive his no-trade clause for. With no GM, nothing moves. The team is not hiding it either: any call on the captaincy waits for the new hockey leadership.
Patrick Kane did not hang around for it. The winger went back to Chicago this summer once his deal expired. Detroit keeps losing the people it used to lean on.
643 points. Five playoff games.
Those two numbers are the Larkin paradox. He has 643 points in 808 regular-season games, 276 of them goals, since Detroit took him 15th overall in 2014. And five playoff games in 11 seasons.
The Michigan native is coming off his best year: a career-high 34 goals and 33 assists in 74 games. He came home from Italy in February with Olympic gold. His eight-year, $69.6 million deal runs through 2030-31.
Captain since 2021, he opens his 12th season in Detroit without the letter, at a franchise 10 years removed from the postseason. Camp starts Thursday. The room will show soon enough whether the statement matched the mood.
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