The story is that Dylan Larkin wants out of Detroit. But where he'll go remains very much up for debate.

Wielding his no-trade clause like a loaded pistol while demanding a trade is, you have to admit, kinda funny. But at first, the local media — well, just Helene St. James, but she would probably know — said the only teams Larkin would go to were Minnesota, Florida, and Vegas. Then Elliott Friedman said maybe it's more like Tampa and Dallas, as well.

Three teams, five teams? Hell, make it eight just for fun. Either way, he's severely limiting the Red Wings' ability to get something for him, which is only really a problem because he is signed with them for a further five seasons. And also because all the teams mentioned aren't exactly overflowing with enticing young players who will help Detroit do what it needs to do and actually rebuild.

But this is part of a bigger picture, especially because there are now rumors, mostly from ex-player podcast guys like Empty Netters and Game Notes, that Connor Hellebuyck wants out of Winnipeg and perhaps has said that he would prefer to go to Florida.

Who knows how true any of it is, but it's certainly believable, and that's enough for me to have a take. The take is: "It sure is interesting that all these American guys want to go to teams that are close to winning."

(How could Florida afford Hellebuyck? If they are unsentimental about 37-year-old Sergei Bobrovsky and are willing to part with, say, Anton Lundell, it makes all the financial sense in the world.) 

I really don't think it's much deeper than Larkin and Hellebuyck — and who knows which other prominent players on losing teams — getting a taste of success that they're just straight up not likely to see in their longtime NHL markets and say, "Get me outta here." You can point to the potential CHUD implications as well, but I'm guessing there are roughly 28-32 teams run by guys who fit that exact profile. Probably not a coincidence, too, that Tampa, Miami, Dallas, and Las Vegas are in no-tax states, and I don't know if you heard but rich guys hate paying taxes. Minnesota is the exception in that mix, but it's run by the guy who put the US Olympic team together and they just acquired Quinn Hughes, so that probably helps explain things.

You can just accept this all as part of a larger trend in sports, but I do wonder if the USA guys in particular are gonna be like, "What am I still doing in Columbus?" or whatever market you like, and try to engineer more of these trades. The word "tampering" gets thrown around a lot, but I don't know if it explicitly applies here by the letter of the law. So I won't call it tampering, but is the team group chat now something you might be able to call "tampering-adjacent?" Well… 

By my count, there are 10 US Olympians in what seem to be "desirable markets" right now: Matt Boldy, Jack Eichel, Brock Faber, Jake Guentzel, Noah Hanifin, JT Miller, Brock Nelson, Jacob Slavin, Matthew Tkachuk, and Vincent Trocheck.

I would put a few more in a "I don't know whether players want to go there" camp: Jack Hughes, Clayton Keller, Jackson LaCombe, Charlie McAvoy, Jeremy Swayman, and Tage Thompson. I lean "destination" on Utah and Anaheim, and I'm a little less sure on Boston just because I don't think anyone believes they're on the come-up. (I have seen some Bruins fans lamenting that they're not aggressively pursuing Larkin. Can't figure that one out.) Buffalo I'm leaning "no," but with Thompson there and the season they just had, it's hardly definitive.

Then there are still another five I think would probably want to take their talents and in lengthy contracts elsewhere, even assuming the Panthers are gonna be full up soon: Kyle Connor, Auston Matthews(?), Jake Sanderson, Brady Tkachuk and Werenski. You'll note all those guys with the exception of Werenski, who might just be a CBJ lifer but also got his name mentioned in trade rumors a few times recently, are playing in Canadian markets, and none of them are in the soon-to-be-independent Republic of Alberta. Based on little more than what other people are saying they're hearing, I think that's a real concern across the entire sport in the long run.

But of course, Detroit is still in the United States, and ultimately I think the biggest thing is that they are bad and Larkin wants to be on a team that is not bad. I don’t really blame him.

The coaching carousel spins on

It took a couple days, but the Kings finally announced yesterday that they locked in Peter Laviolette to coach their team, a hire that basically everyone in the sport met with a hearty, "Alright man, sounds good."

Which is fine for a team whose competitive window, such as it was the last few years, seems to be winding down. There's not really much else to say about it until we see how Quinton Byfield takes to the No. 1 center role. Maybe Laviolette has a trick or two up his sleeve on that front, but I'm not holding my breath.

That means we're getting to the end of what felt like the longest period in recent memory where a good chunk of the league was looking for a coach. There have been five new coaches hired just since the start of the year, and both the Kings and Canucks only wrapped their search up in the last week or so. That leaves only the Maple Leafs and Oilers without a new bench boss, and even since I wrote about the Babcock-to-Edmonton thing yesterday, there have been more developments.

Now the Insiders are saying the NHL will conduct an investigation into the whole situation in Columbus in 2023 — which Frank Seravalli now says is bigger than just the whole "what's on your phone" thing — before they could sign off on the hire, which both puts the Oilers in a position where they might want to hire him, but could be forced to wait weeks or more before they can formalize. And that's only if the league finds that he's eligible to coach at all, which is something the Players' Association, not to mention a bunch of guys who are currently on the Oilers, would probably frown at.

Meanwhile, Toronto has interviewed basically anyone who has an Elite Prospects staff profile (see? I'm not mad) for their open job. Something like 50 guys at least got a call, depending on who you believe. And no one knows who might get the job, except I have a little tip for you: If everyone starts saying a crazy name out of nowhere, like "Joe Pavelski," that is softening the ground for a hire they don't think people are gonna like. That's why everyone said, "Pierre Dorion to Vancouver" a few weeks ago before they hired Ryan Johnson. A let's-just-see move. On the other hand, if they hire him, I think a lot of people are gonna be pretty mad that this is how they’re treating the potential (probable?) end of the Matthews era.

Meanwhile, Bruce Cassidy is still without an active gig. Which honestly makes me think the Babcock and Pavelski stuff is puttering around just so they can get into a bidding war over Cassidy once Vegas either wins or loses the Cup. On the other hand, if they lose, it's honestly not that hard for me to see them saying, "We decided no one can have permission to talk to him, because we need to do our own hiring process now."

Don't think I've ever seen anything like it, but that's the Golden Knights for ya.

Tuch Enough

Quick one for the road before I go see Disclosure Day, the new film from Director Spielberg (thoughts on it coming your way next week).

Saw where the Buffalo Sabres and Alex Tuch are far apart on a contract and that Tuch is trending toward hitting the market on July 1. Great news for him, because he's gonna find a sucker to give him $12 million or so against the cap for a bunch of years. Maybe not a Michael McCarron-style term (six years?! like, the number after five?), but nonetheless hefty to the point of inadvisability.

Much like I think Larkin is doing the Red Wings a favor by forcing them to trade a guy who was part of the reason they have wrongly been Going For It these last few years, letting someone else take on the waning years of Tuch's career would be flat-out advisable for Buffalo.

He's a very good player — not a great one — coming off what was nearly a career year, at age 30. No doubt he will be productive for the first few years of his next contract, maybe the whole thing, but will he be "$12 million" productive? That's not a bet I'd be willing to make.

But him walking away would create a hole at top-six winger that Buffalo couldn't fill via free agency. But the truth is they overperformed this year, both in the regular season and especially the playoffs. This is not, I think we can agree, one of the eight best teams in the league on a long timeline. Doesn't mean they aren't good, or can't be playoff-competitive even without Tuch next season, but come on. The Sabres?

The good news is that while the UFA class stinks, the robust trade market and the potential for offer sheets makes Tuch, if not replaceable, then certainly semi-replaceable. Especially if Buffalo is both a buyer and a seller on the trade market, because they have some guys they could dangle (like Ukko-Pekka Luukonen), and plenty of future firsts that, given where they are in their competitive cycle, ought to be available.

Sucks to lose a hometown guy, for sure, but if there's one lesson teams should take from Vegas going back to the Cup Final kinda out of nowhere, it's that sentimentality can really hold you back. The Sabres can't afford that after the season they just had.