The Detroit Red Wings were once the NHL’s model franchise, but those days feel long gone. And the episode at their home opener involving former captain Dylan Larkin may be rock bottom for the franchise.
As one of the Original Six, the Red Wings have one of the NHL’s proudest histories, with 11 Stanley Cups in their trophy cabinet. They made the playoffs for 25 straight seasons from 1991-2016, the third-longest in league history.
Detroit has inexplicably missed the playoffs for ten consecutive seasons. It seems like it was the days of Gordie Howe and Ted Lindsay when the Red Wings were last playing playoff hockey. And their lack of success finally prompted beloved team captain, Michigan native, and Team USA member Dylan Larkin to request a trade this offseason.
Larkin hasn’t been traded yet, but he isn’t playing either because of an offseason upper-body injury. He was also stripped of the captaincy after the trade request. Still, the Red Wings introduced him to the Little Caesars Arena crowd at their home opener on Friday night. And as anyone with a functioning brain would expect, he was booed out of the building.
Dylan Larkin got BOO’D during the Wings home opener intros 😳 pic.twitter.com/x58up8q11S
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) October 2, 2026
At the first intermission, the NHL on TNT crew discussed the situation. And while Wings fans might feel as though they were entitled to their public pound of flesh, Paul Bissonnette, never one to mince words, criticized the move as “bush league.” The former NHL enforcer said that the franchise was only looking to publicly embarrass their former captain. The entire set concluded that it could hurt the Red Wings’ ability to attract players to Detroit moving forward because of how they treated him.
— welovesports40 (@welovesports40) October 3, 2026
“I think we can all agree it was a bit bush league by the organization. They knew what they were going to expect for the fans raining down the boos,” Bissonnette said. “I think he’s faced enough of this so far and you could see his reaction, he knew it was going to come. Then he tries to go down the hallway and, from our understanding they ended up stopping him at a certain point to try to send him back out. I think that they’re probably trying to publicly embarrass him a little bit and any chance of reconciliation maybe before this, I would say the player would be like ‘see you later, I”m out of here, it’s enough.'”
It’s a tough situation for everybody involved. Should Dylan Larkin be forced to face the music and answer to fans who feel betrayed? Perhaps. But if the Red Wings choose to do that and make things difficult for him, they also have to live with the consequences if it negatively affects the team moving forward and how they are seen around the league.
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