- Boston is not on Dylan Larkin’s three-team trade list
- The Hockey News says Don Sweeney’s job is to change that
- Read below for Larkin’s numbers and the Bruins’ center depth chart
The Bruins have a hole down the middle, and the player most likely to fill it does not want to go to Boston.
Adam Proteau of The Hockey News wrote that center is the team’s biggest weakness heading into 2026-27, and that general manager Don Sweeney should spend his summer changing Dylan Larkin’s mind. Proteau was blunt about whose problem that is.
“While it’s been reported that Larkin doesn’t have Boston on the list of teams he’d waive his no-trade clause for, that’s Sweeney’s job. He needs to convince Larkin and his agent the Bruins would be a terrific destination for him,” Proteau wrote.
Larkin’s list runs three deep. The Panthers, Wild and Golden Knights are the only clubs he has agreed to waive for, a list Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press reported in June. It has not grown since.
Detroit’s asking price is the other wall. The Red Wings want a first-line center coming the other way, and nobody on Larkin’s short list has been willing to hand one over. St. James floated reconciliation as Detroit’s realistic path instead.
Age has not slowed the captain down. Larkin turned 30 in July and just posted a career-high 34 goals with 33 assists in 74 games, his fifth straight season at 67 points or better. Fourteen of those goals came on the power play and nine were game-winners.
Take a look at the season Detroit would be trading away:
Boston’s group down the middle is Pavel Zacha, Elias Lindholm, Fraser Minten and Sean Kuraly. Zacha is coming off a career year of his own at 30 goals and 65 points, which is a fine second-line season and a thin one for a No. 1.
Sweeney does have ammunition. The Bruins hold four first-round picks over the next three drafts, exactly the kind of package a rebuilding Detroit team would want, though they are working with roughly $5.3 million in cap space.
Proteau tossed out a few backup plans too. Will Smith is an offer-sheet candidate in San Jose with Boston College roots, Adam Fantilli is still an unsigned RFA in Columbus, and William Karlsson hits unrestricted free agency next summer in Vegas.
Every one of those names is a long shot. The one center who would actually solve the problem has three teams written down on a piece of paper, and the Bruins are not one of them.
