Friends, if you’ve followed along with the Calgary Flames over the past few seasons, you’ve probably noticed two distinct trends. First, they’re a hard-working team that does their level best to make their opponents work for every inch of ice and they hang around in close games. Second, they’re a team that lacks skilled difference-makers that could help them win those close games they’re in.

Generally-speaking, skilled difference-makers don’t just fall into your lap, you need to usually find them in the draft. So you could understand the general sense of curiosity when it was reported that Detroit Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin would like a trade to another team.

Now, Detroit Free Press ace reporter Helene St. James reported that Larkin has submitted a list of three preferred teams to Red Wings management – the Vegas Golden Knights, Minnesota Wild and Florida Panthers. Obviously, the Flames are not on that list, but that wouldn’t necessarily preclude Craig Conroy from calling up Red Wings general manager Steve Yzerman and making a pitch.

But should he?

Let’s reset for a moment.

Larkin is a 29-year-old left shot centre from Michigan. He played at the U.S. National Development Program and the University of Michigan, and he was drafted by Detroit in the first round in 2014. He was named the Red Wings’ captain in 2020, and he’s in the midst of a long-term deal that has an $8.7 million cap hit and five more seasons left on its term. Oh, and he has a full no-trade clause on his deal right now.

He’s established himself as a pretty good hockey player. He’s scored 30 or more goals six times in his career, and in each of the last five seasons. He’s a pretty consistent 65-to-70 point player. He’s won 52.8% of his face-offs. He’s a career 54.1% Corsi For player. He’s good. He won a gold medal with Team USA at the Olympics!

But let’s also look at a different side of his resume. He’s never won a major NHL award. He’s never even finished higher than 20th in voting for any of them. He’s a career minus-100 in plus/minus. And he hasn’t appeared in the Stanley Cup playoffs since 2016, when Detroit lost in five games. And yes, you could argue that there’s a team element in all of those challenges… but to this point, Larkin hasn’t been enough of a difference-maker to merit an NHL award or get his team back to the post-season in the past decade.

And even with a trade request hanging in the air, Yzerman isn’t likely going to give Larkin away for anything more than a hefty price, one befitting a difference-making player. And so if you’re a team that’s making a play for Larkin, you need to be sure that he’s the missing piece of your team’s puzzle because you’re paying a big price to get him, and then you’re carrying his big-ticket contract for the duration.

That’s a long way of saying that the “Should Calgary make a play for Larkin?” question really boils down to how you feel about three other questions:

To me, the most important question is the second one. At this point in time, the Flames are still accumulating pieces of their future core group. They’re amassing picks and prospects and seeing what it turns into. Trying to add Larkin at this point doesn’t feel like it aligns with the timeline of what’s going on – it would feel like trying to skip some steps – and the price it would cost to add him would likely be prohibitive to Conroy’s stated vision of building a sustainable, long-term contender.

Larkin’s a good hockey player. It’s a shame it hasn’t worked out the way he wanted it to in Detroit. Somebody’s going to pay a big price and get a good hockey player from Detroit in return.

It just shouldn’t be the Flames. Not right now.