Alex DeBrincat scored twice, set up another, and still finished second star of the night behind a guy who put up half his production. It's a small thing, but it's the wrong order, and it says something about how the Red Wings are handling him.
The box score from Detroit's 5-3 win over Ottawa is plain enough. DeBrincat finished with two goals and an assist. Dylan Larkin, making his season debut after an injury layoff and a rough offseason that included a trade request, a lost captaincy, and boos at his home opener, finished with a goal and an assist and walked away as first star. DeBrincat was named second. Viktor Arvidsson, who scored once and assisted on Larkin's goal, was third.
Larkin's night makes the better story. A guy who asked out, got stripped of the captaincy, and got booed by his own crowd comes back from injury and produces in his first game back. That's a redemption arc, and award voters clearly wanted to hand it to him. But the best story and the best player on the ice aren't always the same thing, and Tuesday they weren't close. DeBrincat had the bigger box score and the better case.
The snub matters beyond one night's award. DeBrincat is in the final year of his contract, headed for unrestricted free agency after this season. He's reportedly seeking something in the range of $12 to $14 million a year, and that number lines up with outside projections of what his next deal should cost. Those talks stalled for months because Detroit didn't even have a permanent general manager to have the conversation with. Now that Shawn Horcoff is running things on an interim basis, there's finally someone in the building who can say yes.
It's three games into the season. Ottawa had opened 2-0-0, Detroit had opened 0-2-0, and reading a franchise-altering contract decision into one win over a previously winless team is the kind of thing fans do in October and regret by January. Fair enough. But DeBrincat's price tag was never going to be set by one Tuesday night in Detroit. It's set by a track record that already includes a personal-best goal total, and by a front office that has the cap room to pay him and has spent months stalling anyway.
DeBrincat himself has been almost too patient about it publicly, saying it doesn't really matter right now and that he's focused on the season, trusting the rest to sort itself out. That's a professional answer. It also lets a front office keep dragging its feet without consequence.
Detroit can keep letting Larkin's comeback dominate the back pages. It's a good story. The organization's job this month is making sure the guy who just put up two goals and an assist, and still got outvoted for a nightly award, doesn't walk for nothing next summer because nobody wanted to pick up the phone.
