Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider's futures in Detroit rest on a crucial Dylan Larkin trade element
Photo credit: IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
Detroit won't take picks for Dylan Larkin. The real reason sits in Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider's contracts, and a date almost nobody has flagged.
Detroit's stance on Dylan Larkin is being read as pride. The contracts of two other players explain it better.
Helene St. James reported the Red Wings want value-now players back for their captain, not picks or prospects.
Taking futures would tell Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider that a rebuild is coming.
Re Dylan Larkin trade request: "The Wings really want value-now players in return, not draft picks or prospects; To accept the latter would be sending a signal to...Lucas Raymond...and Moritz Seider...that the Wings are in rebuild mode."
- Helene St. James
- Helene St. James
The part nobody has checked is whether Raymond and Seider could actually do anything about it.
Both cornerstones are locked until the same season
They can't, at least not yet.
Raymond signed eight years at $8.075 million in September 2024; Seider signed seven years at $8.55 million three days later.
Raymond carries a 10-team modified no-trade clause in the final four years of his deal. Seider's identical protection covers the final three.
Do the math and both clauses switch on in the same season: 2028-29. Until then Detroit controls where either player goes, and neither has the leverage Larkin used this June.
The window Detroit is actually protecting
That gives the next general manager two full seasons, 2026-27 and 2027-28, of total control before either cornerstone gains a say. It also explains why an interim front office is being told to hold.
Shawn Horcoff is running day-to-day operations and cannot make trades, with owner Christopher Ilitch using a search firm to find Steve Yzerman's replacement.
Training camp opens September 17.
So the risk isn't a Raymond or Seider trade request next summer.
It's slower and worse than that.
Seider becomes a UFA after 2030-31, Raymond a year later. If Detroit spends the next two seasons converting a first-line captain into futures, it burns the middle of both contracts on a retool neither player signed up for.
Then 2028-29 arrives, the clauses activate, and the leverage quietly flips.
That is the deadline the Red Wings are really managing.
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