October 31, 2026

Friedman: that list of ten may not stay ten for long

Well now, folks, just when you thought this saga was settling in for a long winter's nap.

Saturday night on Hockey Night in Canada, Elliotte Friedman reported that Dylan Larkin's ten-team trade list could be altered in the next 24 to 48 hours — teams taken off, teams possibly added. Florida, Vegas, and Colorado, he said, are places where a deal is "very hard to see happening, if not impossible," so if the eraser comes out, that's likely where it starts.

And on the other side of the table, Shawn Horcoff told NHL.com he's prepared to "wait as long as necessary" to get the return he wants. One camp may shuffle the list; the other insists it's in no hurry at all.

Then there's the thunder rolling in from Tampa Bay. Friday night, Nikita Kucherov — the reigning Hart Trophy winner — told the Lightning he won't re-sign and wants a trade. GM Julien BriseBois answered that Tampa "unequivocally has no intention of trading Nikita." Kucherov is in the last year of his deal, he's got his own ten-team list, and unlike Larkin, he's still playing — three assists Saturday night in Nashville — while his agent handles the business.

So what does a second superstar standoff mean for ours? Plenty, potentially:

• Tampa Bay is ON Larkin's list — and its front office now has both hands full with a star of its own. A Larkin deal there just got a whole lot more complicated.

• The shoppers now have two names to price. Some of the teams circling Larkin may pause and peek at Kucherov — and if BriseBois truly won't move him, all that attention snaps right back to Detroit's kid as the one star actually available.

• And the contrast will get talked about: Kucherov asked out and kept playing; Larkin asked out and is sitting home losing $41,237.11 a day. Fair or not, folks, that comparison is going to follow this saga until one of the two standoffs cracks — and whichever cracks first sets the going rate for the other.

The meter, holy mackerel, just keeps running through all of it.

Sources: Sportsnet (Saturday Headlines), NHL.com, The Athletic, Daily Faceoff.