FOX 2 Sports Wrap: Reacting to Larkin news & weekly football picks

Thank you so much for joining us here on Fox 2 Detroit Live at 830. I'm Aaron Jordan. We normally start with political news and we're going to have you covered all throughout the week and the weekend on that. And if you still haven't voted, go to fox2detroit.com slash elections. We have you covered there. But the big story everyone is talking about tonight. This is the Dylan Larkin news. It came out today that the Red Wings star, former captain, is suspended without pay after he told the team he no longer wants to play for them. Red Wings interim general manager Sean Horkoff spoke with just within the last few hours. In case you missed that, I do want to play that whole thing for you. We're going to dive into that with sports producer James Paxson as well. But first, here's the Wings interim GM. Can you shed a little light on what's happened in the last 24 hours? I wish you all the best. Thank you very much. Yeah, to put it simply, you know, we received a call from Dylan's agent today just saying that Dylan no longer, wasn't going to be coming to the rink and no longer want to be a part of the Red Wings. Where have trade talks been at? Ongoing. You know, I think one thing I will say is, you know, You know, since I kind of got the job from day one, I've worked... I've worked extensively, exhaustively with CAA to find a solution for Dylan. I'm feeling. Um. We've talked to the teams on Dylan's list. We've talked to other teams and taken calls from other teams around the league that have expressed interest in Dylan. And we just continue to try to find a solution that fits for both sides. We have to be sensitive to Dylan and his situation and understand what he wants in this relationship. But at the same time, You know, a responsibility to our players in the locker room, the 22 other guys in the locker room, the coaching staff, management, the fans, to also do what's right for the organization. Can you also shed a little light on how it was handled within the room and how guys were told? How old? Yeah, unfortunately with social media nowadays, I think probably the majority of them found out on their phones. I kind of planned on talking to the guys tonight, just address them quickly and talk to the leadership group. And I think the choice was, you know, the guys are, I got to comment on the players in there. They've done an amazing job this year dealing with a lot of There's a lot of outside noise. I've been very, very impressed with our leadership group, which has grown substantially since the start of the year. Thank you very much. You know, the older guys that are on top of that, you know, the younger guys are showing. You know, some beginnings of leadership in their own right. And these guys have responded very well. They face a lot of adversity, you know, given all the situations we've gone through. And it's been very, very impressive. They show up to work every night. I've been extremely happy with how they've handled it and how they've played. And tonight, you know, again, I was going to address them quickly. I wanted them to hear it from me before I released any sort of statement. But the ask was, let's focus on tonight's game. It was clear that all the players knew what was going on and that we'll address it as a team tomorrow and I'll answer any questions that they may have. Sean, I know you've said that you're not interested in a rebuild, but are you determined to get players that will help right away or are you more open-minded to possibly getting draft picks, futures, and any deal? I think the goal is to get players that can help us right away, But at the same time, the... The vision and the ultimate goal is the long-term success of the organization. Thank You know, I'm open to all different kinds of deals, and really we're just trying to find something that... That is fair for a return for someone of Dylan's caliber. you He's a heck of a player on a good contract, and it's important for us. very You know, with Dylan, he signed a long-term contract with the Detroit Red Wings, and we in turn showed a commitment to him. much. And when that happens, he becomes a major part of your long-term plans. And when you remove someone like that, it becomes difficult to kind of replace. I think it's important for me to be open to all areas, whether it's prospects and picks and players, but I am doing my best to try to help this group that we have here now in the immediate future, if we can. Dylan said that he felt that he had to earn the trust of his teammates back. With his latest development, do you feel that that trust was broken and kind of a part two? Or if you don't receive what you feel is an acceptable trade package, are you prepared to have him sit for the foreseeable future? In terms of teammates, I'm not going to comment on what other guys are thinking or feeling about this. Plus, it's pretty raw. I think everybody needs some time in the locker room to digest it. I will say that I've been very, very impressed with Dylan. Dylan requested to be traded this summer, and those players welcomed him with open arms, as did the coaching staff. As in management, as did the fans to a large extent. So I just, you know, for me, I was very impressed with how the players were able to kind of see past that and welcome him and try to support him. It was, you know, one thing for Dylan, too, it was not an easy situation. You know, he, I got to give Dylan a lot of credit in this as well. Like he came back and he showed up to camp, you know, unfortunately got injured. But, you know, he faced you guys in tough circumstances. He went out there, you know, for, you know, opening night. He faced the fans and still went out and played hard for us. But in regards to the players, I'm very impressed, and I think it just goes to show the type of people we have in that locker room that we're able to support them. And it goes to show the friendship. Dylan's been here for 12 years. He's put a lot of great years into a Red Wing jersey and created a lot of friendships in there. I'm In terms of sitting out, I can't put a timeline on it. going I'm going One thing I will say is with the teams that Dylan has on his list, to to go it's difficult to get something done in a trade like this. stop ahead There are significant challenges there. when you're trying to put a salary like Dylan's into a team, and start trying to find the right pieces to give in return, so it's difficult. it. How long it takes, I'm not sure. But I am prepared to wait as long as it does, as necessary, to make sure that the return that we get is something that is good for the Red Wings overall. You just touched on it a little bit there, but you talked about needing to do something that's going to make sense for the Red Wings. What aren't you getting or hearing so far that I guess you need to be? I'm not going to get into the specifics of what the trade talks. Yeah, I'm just going to keep that between the teams and myself that we're talking about. There was a report earlier today that talks were escalating. Is that a fair statement? I'm not on social media, so I didn't read that, thank goodness. I'm sure there's lots of reports of things out there that the majority of the time when I was on social media aren't true. I mean, the truth is when you have a player of Dylan's caliber available, your phone rings daily, and my phone rang a lot today. Last thing for me. Were you surprised? I know you mentioned hearing about this morning. Was this something that you were bracing for, to catch you off guard? It's going to be hard. No, I wouldn't say, I would say I was surprised. You know, I think, you know, I thought for a large part, Dylan kind of overcame that, the biggest hurdle, really, which was coming back and, you know, facing the initial. You know, the initial questions from you guys and getting on the ice for the first time with the fans. You know, I was happy that, you know, I think initially one thing I will say is my initial plan was to try to fix it. You know, I wanted to try to do what I could to keep Dylan here in a Red Wing jersey. And clearly that was unsuccessful doing that. You know, again, I think when that phone call came today, I think the last couple days, maybe on the road trip, you know, you can sense that things were a little bit off with him. He was growing up maybe a little more frustrated, but I will say it was a bit of a surprise for me. Yeah, it was kind of a little bit off-back comment, too, Sean. I was going to ask you about how has his mood been here the last little while? How much have you been in contact with him, talked with him? How did he seem? I think for the large part, Dylan's been good. Again, maybe the last couple of days of the road trip, Um... maybe the people around him. For me, on the road especially, I'm not in the locker room with these guys. I see them on the bus or kind of in the lobby, and I'm there watching practice, and I see how they are on the ice. I don't really see them off the ice all that much unless I kind of run by them in a place. But I think probably the last couple of days, you kind of saw something a little bit. You know, different with Dylan, and Dylan's going to have to answer those questions on exactly what he was feeling. Hey, Sean, in your eyes, is this unfixable now at this point? I mean, all I'll say at this point is Dylan no longer wants to be a Red Wing, and he's not with us. You know, I think, I mean, that pretty much, you know, is a strong statement, and, you know, I think Dylan's the only one that really would be able to answer something like that, but for us, it's pretty cut and dry. Sean, given where we're at now with the latest turn of events, I'm sure you would have wanted to win all 12 games, but given all that's gone on here, how do you think your team has performed in light of everything that has happened in the first 12 games? Yeah, I think we've performed very well. I think, honestly, when I look back at the majority of the games that we've played in, I've been very, very happy with our effort. We've been in every single game this season. There's certainly areas of our game that we need to improve. We're focusing on our penalty kill early in the season. We try to focus on scoring more goals, and we've been a little bit better with that. But our defensive play has been outstanding. For the large part, we've gotten really good goaltending, Thank you. really the emergence of some young guys and just guys stepping up into new roles. And, and. And playing bigger parts for our team has been great. So I've been happy with the way we've played. You know, we're right there, and it was a good road trip for us, so it was a lot of positive coming back from the trip. You know, unfortunately, this makes things a little bit different, but we're going to deal with it. We're a resilient group in there. They've proven on the ice and both off the ice, and I'm really confident that we'll just kind of deal with this as a group again and move on. Sean, you said a couple of times that he no longer wants to be a Red Wing, but can you just clarify, does he no longer want to be a Red Wing or no longer wants to put his health at risk and maybe risk not being able to be traded going forward and is he removing himself for that kind of a reason? Um, I... His stance today was he no longer wanted, he wasn't coming to the rink. It was too much for him and he just no longer wanted to be on the team. Sean, are you hopeful that this news today Do you think Dylan expedites anything, including possibly expanding that list in the trade list? Yeah, of course I'm hopeful for things to speed up. I don't think anyone wants to be in this situation. I'd like to solve it for Dylan as well. I mean, we're in the same spot that we wanted to come to a resolution and move on. Go on. In terms of expanding his trade list, yeah, I certainly do get calls from other teams in the league I'm starting to speak. I have interest in Dylan, strong interest in Dylan. And there probably are certain teams in the league that if they were on his list, it would be easier for us to come to a deal and come to an agreement. But unfortunately, at this point, we're not there yet. On Simon, there's status quo for Simon for me last time. There's nothing changed there. Still trying to get something done. I'd like to sign him. Detroit Red Wings interim general manager Sean Horkoff addressing the Dylan Larkin situation there just within the last few hours, saying he's no longer with the team that is representatives. contacted him and that he had expressed that he doesn't want to be with the team anymore. He is now suspended without pay. Red Wings currently playing the Chicago Blackhawks right now, down 1-0. We're going to break this all down with sports producer James Paxson right around this break. Don't go anywhere. We are back now on Fox 2 Detroit live at 8 30. I'm Aaron Jordan. Thank you so much for staying with us. Continuing our coverage of the Dylan Larkin news today, the developing situation out of Hockey Town and I want to bring in sports producer James Paxson who's with me now. I mean Certainly coming to a head today, James. I can't really necessarily say the news is surprising, but at the same time, definitely a frustrating development for the Wings as well. Coming to a head for one side. Yeah. The Wings still haven't traded him, and this is kind of like what we already know we know. As ridiculous as that sounds. No, you're right. They are not going to save this relationship. Larkin is not going to play another game as a Red Wing. We already kind of assumed that the relationship was going to end and he was going to be traded. Now Larkin is forfeiting money every single day and every single game to not play for the Red Wings anymore, which means, yes, he's never going to play again and they have to trade him. How that looks now for the organization, they have a player who they really don't have any trade leverage for anymore. He's not playing. So a similar situation as you just saw this with goalie Connor Hellebuck. Where he got traded from the Winnipeg Jets to the New Jersey Devils. He stopped playing. He was suspended. They had to trade him. They got a deal done. The hope is at this point, you just get any deal done that would be salvageable. Because a lot of the teams he wants to go to, and Sean Horkoff kind of talked about it in that presser today. He really will not get a good enough deal for the franchise. Right. And as much as they want to help Larkin out, and they did say, like, he doesn't want to be here. We want to help you out. We can't jeopardize the future of this team. So for Larkin, it's come to a head. He's no longer going to be a Red Wing. He will have to play for another team, which is what he wants. For the team, they still have to find a way to trade him, which is pretty hard, considering... A no-trade clause, and he's going to be done playing hockey for him. Yeah, and it's really kind of maintaining status quo in a lot of ways right now for the team, too. They're still looking for that deal. They're still dealing with a 10-team no-trade list that, again, we saw Helene St. James put out a couple weeks ago. But all of those teams, to your point, are contenders. And I feel like a lot of them would be a futures deal, Yeah. Which it doesn't necessarily sound like Sean Horakoff. Wanted, and he did say today that he wants it to be a deal that helps the wings not only in the short term, but also the long term. But he's been reluctant to say that he wants a rebuild, and he said before a rebuild's off the table at this point as well. I think it's more whether he wants a rebuild, whether he wants to tear this all down or not, is he has to come up with a good trade. And that may sound ridiculous for me to say is what's a good trade. He has to trade Larkin for some sort of pieces, whether they help him now or later. And when you get to this point... He's already not helping you by not being on the ice. Now you need to see if you can get him to help you with a trade. And teams already know he doesn't want to be here. He doesn't want to be here because he's going to lose $41,000 a day when he doesn't play as a Red Wing. It doesn't make this situation any easier. It just makes it more fun. Well, and it's interesting, too. You bring the pay up, James, because there's already a website. And I've got it on my phone right now called LarkinLosses.com. And it's showing how much money he's losing by the second. And Red Wings, just an update for you, just went up 2-1 in that game. But it's updating every second. He's already lost $35,000. So. LarkinLosses.com is where that is, but it's just wild to see the way that this has gone. You've got this going on. You've got the Edmondson situation brewing as well, and Korkoff saying again today, no change when it comes to that either. No, it looks really bad. It's hard to just talk about the team as a whole. You know, if you want to talk about how they've been able to come back and they had a decent road trip and some of the younger guys have played well. With all this lingering over it, I can't look at them as any sort of hockey team right now because they are so dysfunctional, I'll say. We have no idea what the team will look like in a month or two. And it's hard to look at as, well, how's DeBrinckit, Raymond, and Sider doing Larkin is not going to be here. Edmonton may or may not be here. And you don't know what with the trades is going to make that happen. It puts the team in a really hard place. I don't know how the team can look forward right now when all this is going on. Well, we know you're going to be paying close attention to this as well, James. So we're going to continue to cover this. I did want to run through some of our weekly picks real quick. Sure. Because obviously another busy week of NFL and college football. Michigan, Indiana, I was only able to see part of that. Tough watch as far as an offensive game goes, though, too. Yeah, it was very terrible. I don't know what else to say. It was disappointing that I watched it. It was disappointing that I had to cut highlights of it. It was disappointing that the game existed as a whole. So I never, ever want to talk about it again. Quick recap, the Lions, nice that they got a win. Nice as a Lions fan that they were on the other side of an officiating controversy As opposed to the one kind of being odd. I'm jobbed by it, but at the same time, one of the worst officiated games I've seen in a minute, though, too. Yeah, you missed me with that. I don't care. As a Packers fan, you can't ever talk to me about officiating, ever. This is true. And even in that game, Josh Jacobs drops a perfectly placed ball in the end zone that would have won it. Your kicker missed multiple picks. And on Jamison Williams' second touchdown, you double-covered Penesul. Yeah. Sorry, I don't care. That's not why they lost. Do not care what you want to talk about. It was also a brutal... game as far as that goes too, but let's take a look. Michigan taking on Rutgers this week. 15 and a half points favorite. I got to go with Rutgers in this one. I can't take Michigan as a double-digit favorite. What say you, James? I don't know if either team can score 15, so I will go Rutgers. And Iowa-Wisconsin is one of your wild cards this week, James. The perfect Iowa game that they will win. A low-scoring game off an upset loss for Minnesota beat them. On big noon kickoff where Wisconsin sneaks into the top 25, Iowa wins a ugly, dirty, grimy, disgusting football game. Yeah, that sounds about right. Florida-Georgia is your other one. Initially, we're both going to go this game. I need to pick up a game on you, so we switched it up here. But Georgia, a 12.5-point favorite over Florida. I think the Florida story is over, so I will go Georgia to cover the 12.5 and look to continue a top-five season. Minnesota-Indiana is one of my wild cards. I think Indiana wins this game, but I've got to go with Minnesota to cover. 20.5 points, way too high of a spread after last week's offensive showing. Got to see it to believe it. And then I don't think Oregon's that good this year. I'm going to take Northwestern in this game over Oregon, plus 3.5. And I really think, I think Northwestern ends up pulling this out. I'm going to take the Wildcats in this one. Sunday, Detroit, Minnesota, in Detroit, Detroit a three-point favorite, here on Fox 2 as well. We've got a big day on Fox 2, we'll get to that in a second. I'm going to take Detroit in this one. I agree. I don't think Minnesota's played an offense as good as the Lions, and as much as the Lions' defense has had some problems, Minnesota's offense hasn't been clicking. I'll go to the Lions to cover. I like that. And then Arizona-Dallas, one of your wildcard picks. I think Dallas is going to take off. They just beat the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday Night Football. The first-place team in that division is the Giants behind J.J. McCarthy. Yes, they've looked good, but Dallas, once their defense starts clicking, they're going to be performing really well. I'll take the Cowboys to cover. And in Arizona, or Las Vegas, excuse me, New York Jets is your other one. Jets by a point and a half. You don't take a team favorite after they lost to the Miami Dolphins. So you go Vegas Raiders to win at the Meadowlands. That is, you know what, that is a great rule of thumb that you have there. Thank Yeah. No. That's brutal. Don't do it. L.A. Chargers, I got to go air quotes here, at L.A. Rams, just considering they play in the exact same venue. I'm going to take the Rams in this one. Chargers are brutal this year. 0-7, if that's correct. you. Which is wild because, I mean, everyone talks about Jim Harbaugh as being a good coach. He is a good coach. The fact that a Jim Harbaugh-led team is 0-7, there's a lot of issues going on there. Finally, Indianapolis-Jacksonville is my other one. Indy's in the middle of a fire sale right now. It's a big spread. I got burned by this last week when I took Houston by 10 points over the Giants. I'm running it back. I'm taking Jacksonville minus 10 over the Indianapolis Colts. Got to do it. That's another good pick. Yeah, a fire sale there. That's what we're running with. And Lions game day live this weekend as well. I'm sure big show planned for that. Yes. Half hour earlier, 9.30 to 11. And then, of course, the Lions game, 1 to 4. And then after national Fox coverage, come join us for the Lions postgame show. A lot to dissect. It's a huge game. You win. Minnesota's no longer undefeated. And you have two division wins. You lose your three games behind the Vikings. And as Dan Miller has said all week, your chances of winning division go pretty slim after losing that game. And then sports work Sunday night, 11 to midnight. Absolutely. And that'll be a great day. And a big day of politics as well, because... Five days out from the election tonight, Sunday, we have a special edition of The Pulse at 6.30. Rup will be in-house for that. I'll be producing that. And then from 7 to 10, we've got special election coverage streaming right here on Fox Local. Dave Spencer, Ronia Shimona, Rup Raj, all have you covered. Thank you. I will be here for that as well. It is a team effort, and again, we are your home for politics and your home for the Lions as well. So whether you're a sports or a politics fan, we got you covered. Sunday, we got you covered. Yep. James Paxson, thank you so much, and thank you so much for watching tonight. We will see you next time.