The New Jersey Devils have been busy this offseason. They added complimentary top-six players like Anthony Mantha and Luke Evangelista. The Devils revamped the front office with Sunny Mehta now leading as GM. They made major changes to the bottom six by adding Evan Rodrigues, Jesper Boqvist, and Amadeus Lombardi. Their most important moves were the ones that were pretty quiet.
The Devils re-signed Nico Hischier and Arseny Gritisyuk to long-term contracts. Hischier was especially important. Teams were trying to circle around the Devils captain after some unsavory comments at the end of last season. He was getting named in trade rumors, but that ended on July 1st when, at the first possible moment, he committed for six more years in New Jersey.
Other teams have not been so lucky. Specifically, the Detroit Red Wings. They also moved on from their GM, Steve Yzerman, but they still haven’t named a full-time GM, and Shawn Horcoff is going to take on the role from an interim perspective going into the season.
This would always be a frustrating process for fans when a team goes through most of an offseason without a GM, but it’s especially annoying this season. That’s because Dylan Larkin requested a trade.
For the longest time, it was essentially written in pen that Larkin was going to be traded to the Minnesota Wild. Devils fans are interested in this because it’s well known that Larkin is close to Quinn Hughes, and them playing together might hurt the Hughes brothers playing together in the near future.
But now, a worse scenario might be developing.
One name on Dylan Larkin's expanded trade list should scare Devils fans more than the Wild
According to Elliotte Friedman on his latest 32 Thoughts podcast, Larkin’s expanded list includes Colorado, Washington, Dallas, and Tampa Bay. That’s huge for the Red Wings, who have been hearing the same lowball offers from Bill Guerin all summer. Now that we’re officially in autumn, the Red Wings can talk to new teams with authority.
Some of these teams would be interesting as an addition, but one makes life much harder for the Devils, specifically. The Washington Capitals did great work to revamp their roster after missing the playoffs last offseason. They added Alex Tuch, Jordan Kyrou, and Boone Jenner, while also convincing Alex Ovechkin to return for one more season.
What is hurting the Capitals is their center situation. Their first-line center is Pierre-Luc Dubois. Their second-line center is Dylan Strome. That might be one of the few center situations that is in worse shape than the Wild.
The wingers are great; maybe the best in the league when considering depth lines one through four. Add in a future star in Ryan Leonard, and this forward group is stacked. But if they don’t have centers, the Devils are still in their conversation. With Jack Hughes and Hischier at the top, the Devils are scores ahead of the Caps.
Larkin is worse than both Hughes and Hischier, but he is immensely better than anyone the Capitals are putting out there right now. Of course, it will be difficult to make the salary cap work, but that would be a one-year issue anyone can figure out with enough work.
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