Drunk Matt Prater

The Dylan Larkin situation is no surprise. Two seasons ago, he played awfully after the 4 Nations as other similarly-ranked centers like Robert Thomas and Nick Suzuki played exceptionally. Kane, Debrincat and even Kasper played very well down the stetch, but the Larkin-Raymond connection was broken and they were minus a million with low production and Detroit choked away a playoff spot. Bad enough. And then Larkin, who'd been playing sad loser all year, mumbled some nonsense about the players not getting an energy boost from Yzerman trades. You could sense from afar that Yzerman didn't know how to respond. This guy had generally had his post-season press conference within a day or two of the locker-room cleanout days. I think it took Yzerman almost two weeks. And during the PR event, you could sense he was bewildered. This guy.... this guy who failed his team... is calling me out? And he said as much, just more diplomatically I would have. He said something like, if you look at St. Louis and Montreal, their high-paid leaders led the way. (Ours didn't). I'll never understand why Yzerman didn't make it a priority to ditch Larkin after that. Larkin failed again last year, scoring zero 5-on-5 goals after Dec. 11 or something. Zero. And the Wings choked away another playoff spot. Weeks later, Larkin decided he wanted out. By the time the Leo Carlsson offer sheet broke, I suspect Yzerman wanted to quit the new NHL and I'd bet he was trying to line up the job for his buddy Kris Draper. The sad thing is that Yzerman let this Larkin drama unfold when he should have been the GM who drove the drama, announcing Larkin would be moved in the summer of 2025. Instead, Detroit has to cater to the whims of an entitled whiner.