As much as the Boston Bruins have a clear and demonstrable need for a right-shot defenseman, they also have a need for a top 6 center in their current situation. And the latest developments with Dylan Larkin requesting a trade from the Detroit Red Wings continue to expand the supply of top-line centers that are going to be available over the next couple of months.
This humble hockey writer remembers Larkin’s rookie season in 2015-16 when one veteran Bruins defenseman made a point of pulling this reporter aside in Detroit and mentioning, “Watch out for that Larkin kid. He was impressive…so fast. He’s going to be a really good player for a long time.”
Larkin brings world-class speed and skill and has for the last 11 NHL seasons, while posting 276 goals and 643 points in over 800 games, to a Bruins team that could sorely use more of both.
“We got bounced in the first round. So yeah, we need more talent, we need more speed,” admitted Cam Neely at the end of the season press conference. “That’s something that we have to try to acquire in one way, shape or form. But you look at the elite teams in the league, we’re not there.
“Like I said two years ago, when you strip it down like we did, you’re not going to be there in one season, so it’s going to take some time.”
The Larkin bomb dropped on Thursday in a bit of reporting from Hockey Night in Canada’s Elliotte Friedman as the Detroit captain is clearly tired of watching the Red Wings finish outside of the Stanley Cup playoffs as he approaches his 30th birthday in the next month.
Notably, Friedman has also mentioned that the Red Wings captain won’t be the only notable name around the NHL demanding a trade this summer. Larkin finished with 34 goals and 67 points in 73 games last season and has produced five straight 30-goal seasons in Detroit while also playing a lead role in the Team USA contingent that won gold at last winter’s Olympics.
Larkin has also been a long-time respected leader and captain in the NHL and brings exactly the kind of steady, solid veteran voice that could be added to Charlie McAvoy and David Pastrnak as key leadership in the B’s dressing room.
The best part is that Larkin is signed for the next five seasons at a reasonable $8.7 million salary cap hit and has a full no-trade for the next two seasons and will reasonably be able to direct the next NHL location where he is headed. It is very likely that the final few teams that were alive in the Stanley Cup playoffs would be at the top of Larkin’s wish list, but certainly the Bruins would be in that mix as well with their core group pushing them back into the playoffs last season, and with McAvoy and Jeremy Swayman as teammates on his gold medal-winning Team USA group last season.
Larkin isn’t the only name, either, as Vancouver Canucks center Elias Pettersson, St. Louis Blues center Robert Thomas, Toronto Maple Leafs center Auston Matthews, and even New Jersey Devils center Nico Hischier have all been speculated about as top-tier centers that will be made available this summer once the wheeling and dealing starts happening. So there will be no shortage of viable candidates if the Bruins opt to go that route after freely admitting a month ago that they do not have a No. 1 center on their roster and that it’s a clear need on the team.
“Whether either [Minten or Hagens] becomes a number one centers is up to them and how that goes for them, and what the path is for them. We want to give these guys every opportunity to take a job that’s staring at them,” said Neely. “We all in this room recognize we don’t have a true number one [center], you know? That’s something that we want to try to rectify, whether it’s this offseason or those guys growing into it. But it’s something that we know that’s needed.”
The real question for the Bruins is going to be what they would be willing to give up in order to secure a No. 1 center that could slot their other centers into the proper spot in the lineup. Would they be willing to deal a player like
