5 player trade proposed between Wild and Red Wings with Dylan Larkin as the centerpiece.

No one could have expected the news that broke last week when it was revealed that Detroit Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin wants out of Detroit, demanding to be traded from the only National Hockey League team that he has ever played for.

While there has been plenty of discussion about why Larkin wants out, there has been surprisingly little talk about what a trade for Larkin might look like. That being said a number of teams have been linked to this potential deal and recently both Max Bultman and Corey Pronman took a look at what some of those deals might look like in a recent article for The Athletic.

One proposed deal in particular stood out to me however, a 5 player trade between the Red Wings and Wild and today I'll be taking a closer look at what exactly that would mean for both teams. First let's look at the trade proposal.

Minnesota Wild receive:
Dylan Larkin
Sebastian Cossa

Detroit Red Wings receive:
Jesper Wallstedt
Danila Yurov
Charlie Stramel

What The Wild Get Out of This.

The centerpiece of this deal is of course Larkin himself as that would be the biggest return the Wild would be looking at here. The Wild have already pushed all of their chips into the middle of the table when they made a blockbuster trade for star defenseman Quinn Hughes, with no guarantees that Hughes will agree to a new deal with the Wild, so it makes sense for them to go all-in once again on a big trade for Larkin. Their window to win is right now.

The addition of Sebastian Cossa would help the Wild offset the loss of Jesper Wallstedt in goal, although there's no question that Wallstedt has developed at a much more impressive pace than Cossa thus far.

Larkin carries a salary cap hit of $8,700,000 per season while Cossa comes in at just $863,334 on his entry level contract, representing a total cap hit of $9,563,334.

What The Red Wings Get Out of This.

Interestingly enough this deal would allow the Red Wings to correct what appears to have been a mistake at the the 2021 NHL Entry Draft where they selected Cossa. Although Cossa has been solid for the Grand Rapids Griffins of the American Hockey League that has not translated to the NHL level just yet since the Red Wings drafted him in the first round (15th overall). The same thing can't be said for the goaltender who was drafted just a few spots later.

That goaltender is of course Minnesota Wild goaltender Jesper Wallstedt who proved beyond any doubt this season that he belongs at the NHL level. Selected 5 spots after Cossa at 20th overall, Wallstedt played so well this season that he eventually took the starting role away from veteran goaltender Filip Gustavsson. Wallstedt even got the nod over Gustavsson in the Stanley Cup playoffs despite being a rookie goaltender in his first real NHL season.

The other two players included in the Wild's package are also former first round picks with Danila Yurov likely being the more familiar of the 2 as far as NHL fans are concerned. Yurov was selected in the first round (24th overall) of the 2022 NHL Entry draft and is coming off of his first real season in the NHL. The Russian forward had 12 goals and 15 assists for 27 points in 73 games for the Wild in his debut season.

Stramel was also selected in the first round (21st overall) of the 2023 NHL Entry Draft but Stramel has yet to play at either the AHL or NHL level and is much more of a prospect. That being said he is coming off of a breakout season at Michigan State University in which he set career highs for goals (19), assists (25), and points (44) over just 37 games played.

Wallstedt is the highest earning of the 3 in terms of a cap hit with the Wild netminder coming it at $2.2 million per season as he enters the final year of a 2 year deal. Yurov is in the 2nd year of his entry level contract and comes in at a cap hit of just $972,500 while Stramel is set to start his entry level deal next season and comes in at a cap hit of just $1,075,000.

That represents a total cap hit of $4,247,500 coming the Red Wings way which would also mean that this trade would represent a significant cap savings of $5,315,834. Although that is quite a lot of valuable cap room, with so few free agents available this summer I do wonder how much value that will have for the Red Wings in the immediate aftermath of this potential trade.

Would you pull the trigger on the trade from the Wild's side? How about the Red Wings? Let me know what you think of this one in the comments.