You hate that your team can't acquire Larkin for pennies on the dollar in your fantasy land trade scenario. Since when does Yzerman get fleeced in trades? Asking for a friend...

Lol it’s not that much. I’d say probably Poulin, Pettersson, and 2022 1st. I mean Larkin is good but he isn’t the great one good where he gets essentially two 1st rounders and three 2nds. If Matheson were to go instead of Petty then yeah probably add a goaltender prospect or Broz to the deal, but that’s it tbh.

Id do it for 4 unprotected firsts

Your comment is somewhat valid, but not in all cases. This is one. The Pens are short on young talent, they are not trading their only good younger talent and finally Wings are not taking picks for their only NHL center.

That being g said Larkin is suited for #2 center position. People forget he is a hometown player, playing for his hometown team, playing for his idol, Yzerman, and the team and and fan base really likes him. All that being said he has not asked to be traded, unlike PLD, who asked for a trade. They are rebuilding yes and it is going slow, But it is starting to take shape, maybe in 2 or 3 years they will be a playoff teams with a ton of good young players.

1 million f'in percent!

Poulin may be the Pens best prospect, but he wouldn’t be top-5 on Red Wings. Pens would need to force them to move their captain, 1C and tone-setter (and local kid).

That’s a weak argument. Detroit has drafted top 10 for how many straight years? Just because he wouldn’t be a top 5 prospect in Detroit doesn’t mean he loses value. As you said he is still a top prospect and still a 1st round quality prospect. I’m not saying Detroit should trade him. They are in no rush as he still has 2 years left on his contract. If they do trade him, they likely retain half on his contact too so they get more. But that’s not suggested in this scenario.

If the prospect fills a need, he would have more value (represented by acquisition price).
But a team with a full pipeline, like Detroit, has less of a need for a guy like Poulin.
So yes, there is a little less value, and thus lower acquisition price.

i agree, hes a high end 2c on most teams, 3c is a stretch.

hes not a 1C

a fourth round pick

Not really. A top prospect is a top prospect. Teams don’t just turn them down regardless of where they’d fall in their organization. I bet if you ask any gm they will say they can never have too many top prospects. Why? Cause a lot of times they don’t pan out. The more you have the more likely you will find ones that stick and work out.

Yes really. It is simple economics of price setting.

Poulin is a top prospect period. His value doesn’t decrease to a rebuilding team. I’m not the one who set the price either. Red Wang fans did.

What exactly do you mean top prospect? I think this needs to be defined as there isn’t a clear cut answer. For example, the best prospect in Pittsburgh’s pipeline isn’t going to be for LA, Detroit, Ottawa, etc. Is there a distinct between blue chip prospect and top prospect? Or how do you define top prospect so we can have a civil discussion about this.

Just a late heads up. It's kind of an unwriten rule on ACGM not to post Larkin trades because 90% of wings fans blow their top.

Considering multiple other fan bases have came into this thread questioning why Detroit would do this or explain it would cost a lot means what exactly? There’s unwritten rule in trades where both parties needs need to be taken into account. Seems like a crazy concept but trading an organizational weakness for an organizational strength doesn’t make too much sense.

Oh for sure, I agree it makes 0 sense. I was mostly just poking fun.

You're only thinking about this from Pittsburgh's point of view. Larkin would be a great 2C behind Crosby, sure. You're not considering Detroit at all.
Larkin is Detroit's only Top 6 center in the organization. They don't have a center prospect that's likely to be near as good as Larkin is. If they trade Larkin, the 2019-2020 Wings are going to look like a premier hockey team compared to how they would be. Historically bad would be an understatement.
With the number of high quality prospects already in the pipeline, it makes no sense to go nuclear. The Wings have talent everywhere but at center, which would be wasted if they started the rebuild over again.

At this stage, there's nothing that would be reasonable for both teams to entice Detroit to trade Larkin. No team would be stupid enough to make the massive overpayment required, nor should they even consider it. Period.

That would be 5 years. Michael Rasmussen, Filip Zadina, Moritz Seider, Lucas Raymond, Simon Edvinsson, 9, 6, 6, 4, 6 overall respectively.
Not every team is gifted a Lemieux or Crosby when they hit rock bottom. Although, to be fair, in the early 2000s, Pitt had 5, 1, 2, 1, 2 overall consecutively in order to build their success. Not exactly a fair comparison, as talent tends to drop off after pick 3.

Not all prospect pools are created equal. Poulin may have value to Pittsburgh, but would he better than Bertuzzi, Vrana, Zadina, Fabbri, Raymond, and Berggren? Some of them, maybe. If Detroit retains 4 of those players, then Poulin's best bet would likely be in the middle 6. Is it worth trading your only Top 6 center for a middle 6 winger and a mid-late 1st? Even if Poulin somehow becomes better than all of those wingers (unlikely, to say the least), Detroit doesn't have another Top 6 center. Would a better winger replace a Top 6 center? Not worth it.

For clarity, I'm not saying that Poulin doesn't have value. What I'm saying is value fluctuates depending on which teams are involved. Poulin doesn't have as much value to the Wings as he would to other teams.