Is this not one of the best Stanley Cup finals of recent memory? Many hockey observers expected a boring, tight-checking final between the Vegas Golden Knights and the Carolina Hurricanes, but that has been far from the product we’ve seen on the ice.

While we have to wait one more night before Game 4, there is other NHL news around the league to hit the headlines on Monday.

According to Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press, Dylan Larkin has given the Detroit Red Wings a list of three teams he would be willing to waive his no-trade clause to go to. Those three teams are the Florida Panthers, Minnesota Wild, and Vegas Golden Knights.

After being drafted 15th overall at the 2014 NHL Draft, Larkin has spent his entire 11-year NHL career with the Red Wings. The Waterford, Michigan native has just one playoff appearance in his career, coming all the way back in his 2015-16 rookie season.

So, after suffering this long without much playoff hockey, it’s not a shock he wants to chase a new opportunity where he can win. And it makes even more sense after his comments following the 2025 season, when he called out the team’s higher-ups for not adding at the trade deadline to help boost their playoff chances.

However, Larkin isn’t making it easy for General Manager Steve Yzerman, giving him just these three teams as his next destinations. All three teams initially have the cap space to fit Larkin’s $8.7 million AAV over the next five seasons, but also have players they’d like to re-sign.

The Panthers have $15.3 million heading into the offseason, but have restricted free agent Mackie Samoskevich to re-up. Although, the more glaring need for the Panthers is in goal, as Sergei Bobrovsky and Daniil Tarasov are both looking for a new contract. They could re-sign all of those guys and move out others from their roster to make the money work for Larkin, but it appears to be too tall a task for the Panthers to pull this off.

Minnesota is the team most in need of Larkin’s services, as they had Ryan Hartman skating as their top-line centre in the playoffs. However, they have even less cap space than the Panthers heading into this summer, at $12.8 million, and more depth players to re-sign. Not all of these guys are likely to come back, but Mats Zuccarello needs a new contract, recently acquired restricted free agent Bobby Brink is up for a new deal, and Michael McCarron is a hot free-agent target around the league. They also have Nick Foligno and Vladimir Tarasenko as pending unrestricted free agents.

The Golden Knights seem like the least likely destination for Larkin; however, Vegas always seems to have a trick up its sleeve in order to make these big deals. Heading into next season, the Golden Knights have just $4.6 million in cap space. But if Pietrangelo is expected to land another year on LTIR, the $8.8 million he frees up will bring the total to $13.4 million in cap space. However, they still have a plethora of players to re-sign, starting with 25-year-old RFA Pavel Dorofeyev, who just put up back-to-back 35+ goal seasons. Along with him are Cole Smith, Brandon Saad, Colton Sissons, Jeremy Lauzon, Ben Hutton, Dylan Coghlan, and the most notable name on the list, Rasmus Andersson. It just seems like too much to try and work around for Vegas to make it work, but you can never truly count them out.

Yzerman may need to play hardball with his captain to expand his list if these are the only three teams he would be willing to waive for.

According to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, the Los Angeles Kings have hired Peter Laviolette as their next head coach.

Laviolette, 61, has coached all around the league throughout his 23-year NHL coaching career. He started with the New York Islanders for two seasons, then went to the Carolina Hurricanes, where he won the Stanley Cup in his second season in 2005-06. After five years in Carolina, he moved on to the Philadelphia Flyers, where he advanced to the Stanley Cup final against the Chicago Blackhawks in 2009-10. Laviolette then moved on again after five years to the Nashville Predators, where he took them to the Stanley Cup final in 2016-17, but lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins. He then coached the Washington Capitals for three years before taking the New York Rangers to the Eastern Conference Finals, where they lost in six games to the eventual Stanley Cup Champion Florida Panthers.

The Kings’ search was down to Laviolette, interim head coach DJ Smith, who took over in-season after they let go of Jim Hiller, and former Edmonton Oilers head coach and current Anaheim Ducks assistant Jay Woodcroft. Los Angeles ultimately lands on Laviolette, whose reputation around the league is that he can turn a franchise around quickly but can’t quite get over the top, having done so only once despite three Stanley Cup appearances.