The old dream was to slowly build and eventually bring a championship to the team that drafted you. The new dream, for some stars, is to identify a serious contender, hop on their bandwagon, and earn themselves a ring.
It’s called player empowerment.
In practice, the player brings forward some murky clandestine excuse for wanting to take his services elsewhere. We’ve seen the “everyone’s blaming me” excuse recently employed by Mitch Marner as he high-tailed it to Vegas. Then there’s the “American-playing-in-Canada” angle: “People up here are mean to me on social media. Send me home.” Home, of course, is where their president has turned being cruel on social media into a full-time job.
In reality, the departing player is a follower, never a leader. A (victory) party crasher who subscribes to the “if you can’t beat them, join them” approach to success.
The NBA has had years to get used to this “super team” approach. In 2019, Anthony Davis asked out of New Orleans, landed alongside LeBron James with the Lakers and won a championship the following season. In 2022, Kevin Durant asked Brooklyn to trade him, with Phoenix and Miami reportedly on his wish list. A year later, Damian Lillard asked out of Portland after 11 seasons. He had his sights set on Miami, which had just reached the NBA Finals, and wound up alongside Giannis Antetokounmpo in Milwaukee. The stars were asking for a say in where they’d spend their remaining prime years, and they had some pretty good high-end rosters in mind.
Durant had already shown how tempting that could be back in 2016. He used free agency to join the Golden State Warriors, who had just won a record 73 games and knocked his Oklahoma City Thunder out of the playoffs. He subsequently won two championships with Golden State. Of course, the Warriors had already won a championship without him, which is precisely why that move still gets under people’s skin.
Hockey has its own version. In 2022, Matthew Tkachuk told Calgary he wouldn’t sign there long-term. Florida was at the top of his list, and the Panthers had just won the Presidents’ Trophy. It’s easy to see the appeal. It’s also worth remembering what happened next. Florida made it to the 2023 Stanley Cup Final, where the Panthers lost to Vegas, before rebounding and winning back-to-back Stanley Cup titles. Brady Tkachuk took notice, asked out of Ottawa and landed in Florida, where he gets to play with his brother Matthew on a team that is poised to possibly win it all again.
For a sense of how far things have come recently in the NHL, look at Dylan Larkin. The Michigan native was drafted by his hometown Red Wings, became their captain and hasn’t played a playoff game since his rookie season. After asking for a trade over the summer, he told Detroit in October that he would no longer play for the team. The Wings suspended him without pay. Yes, Larkin went a decade without playoff hockey, but it’s still jarring to see the hometown captain decide he’s played his last game— when he’s been the team’s failed leader all along.
Connor Hellebuyck asked out of Winnipeg—despite his own repeated playoff failures—and was dealt to the talented New Jersey Devils. He conveniently borrowed a page out of the Marner playbook and cited difficult family circumstances. In Columbus, Kirill Marchenko’s agent signaled that his client wouldn’t re-sign, and the Blue Jackets sent him to Toronto in a deal that brought back Matthew Knies. The common thread is how much say players are exercising over where they play. Their reasons vary. The speculation now moves almost as fast as the trades. Just this week, a report suggested Matvei Michkov wanted a fresh start as well, prompting Flyers GM Daniel Brière to say publicly that Michkov hadn’t asked for a trade. Time will tell.
Yes, a player has every reason to care where he spends his best years. After all, teams trade players the minute it suits them, and a star can waste half his career waiting for management to get the roster set up properly. Still, when the guy a franchise has spent years building around decides his best shot is to join a team that’s already built, it’s fair to wonder what kind of satisfaction he’s chasing.
Think about Sidney Crosby and Pittsburgh. The Penguins lost the 2008 Final to Detroit, then came back a year later and beat the same team for the Cup. The players who had to watch the Red Wings celebrate the first time knew exactly what it meant to take the Cup out of their building the next. That’s the part you miss when you pick a team that’s already done the losing, the learning and most of the winning. If you show up for the last leg and do your share, you’ve earned your place in the parade. But if the team was headed there anyway and all you did was climb aboard, how much of that roar can you honestly hear as yours? The ring fits either way. How it feels to wear it is another question. Probably more hollow than sweet.
