Dylan Larkin didn't play Thursday night. He was scratched for trade-related reasons, sources told ESPN, while the Red Wings beat the Blackhawks at Little Caesars Arena. That absence, more than anything that happened on the ice, shows this franchise still doesn't have real leadership in place.
Detroit stripped Larkin of the captaincy in September, and the team has spent the weeks since refusing to say who's next. The team's own statement punted the decision to whenever new hockey operations leadership gets around to it. That's a team too gun-shy to make a call it already knows the answer to.
Moritz Seider should have the letter. He had a quiet night on the scoresheet Thursday, logging a single assist on Lucas Raymond's power-play goal, while Viktor Arvidsson stole the show with a hat trick. The case for Seider comes down to how he's carried himself through a mess that wasn't his to clean up.
RatingAsked about the situation before the season, Seider stuck up for his teammate rather than lobby for the captaincy himself. He told Eishockey News plainly that the team is better with Larkin on the roster and playing than when he isn't. It's a respectful answer from a guy who's been quietly doing the job anyway, no campaign needed.
Compare that to Larkin. He requested a trade, got it stripped of him publicly, expanded his list of acceptable destinations to ten teams, and by Thursday wasn't in uniform because the two sides still hadn't finished negotiating his exit. His agent called him "very professional and cooperative through this process." Being held out until a trade gets done still works in his favor. Larkin has a no-trade clause and the right to want a change of scenery, and he's using both. But a guy actively forcing his way out of the building shouldn't be who a locker room looks to for direction, no matter how much nostalgia there is for a letter he already gave up fighting to keep.
It's one scratch, one game, and the attention on Larkin could just be standard coverage of a notable absence. That reasoning falls apart against the specifics here. Larkin sat because the front office and his camp still hadn't finished a trade, an issue that had been unresolved since September. It had nothing to do with injury or performance. Reading this as the final word on whether he's still the emotional center of the team isn't premature. He made that call himself when he asked out.
If the Red Wings hand Seider the "C," it would be a real break from how Detroit has done this. Every captain since Nicklas Lidstrom left has been a forward. Seider's a defenseman, 25 years old, with a long career ahead of him in Detroit if the front office stops treating the decision like a live grenade.
The front office deserves the blame here. Seider didn't create this mess, and Larkin's part in it is smaller than it looks. Detroit let this captaincy sit vacant through an entire opening stretch of the season because nobody with the authority to just make the call has been in place. That's a decision-making failure hiding behind the excuse of waiting for "new leadership." Name Seider captain. He's already doing the job. Stop making him wait on a front office that can't finish what it started in September.
