Red Wings set to make big announcement that could further tarnish relationship with Dylan Larkin

Ansar Khan told Oilers Now that Moritz Seider will be Detroit's next captain, and that it holds even if Dylan Larkin returns.

The reaction was uniform: Seider is the captain-in-waiting, Larkin the man on his way out.

Larkin has asked to be traded, so this is not just picking a leader but replacing one mid-teardown.

The stat case for Seider is genuine. He led the Red Wings in plus-minus, finished fifth in Norris Trophy voting, and wore an "A" while logging the heaviest minutes on the blue line.

But the debate everyone is having - Seider or Larkin - skips the person who actually hands out a "C."

Steve Yzerman stepped down as general manager on July 15, sliding into an advisory role while Ryan Gustafson's committee runs the search.

A captaincy is not a beat-reporter decision or a lame-duck one. It is one of the first things a hockey-ops boss owns.

That leaves the captaincy decision without a clear person in charge this summer.

Naming Seider now would hand the incoming GM a leadership structure they never chose. New executives almost always want to shape their own room first.

Seider being the eventual answer is close to settled. Whether Detroit crowns him before a permanent GM arrives is not.

Todd McLellan returns as coach, and the new boss is unlikely to touch him this close to camp. But a captain is different - it is the kind of symbolic call a new GM wants to own.

So the Khan quote may be reading the room correctly while pointing at the wrong deadline. The Larkin variable is noise; the GM vacancy is the gate.

Detroit could open camp with no captain for the first time in years - not because the choice is hard, but because no one is yet in the chair to make it.

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