Dylan Larkin is not being paid. That is the part of a suspension without pay that everyone understands.
The number is $41,237.11 a day, per TSN. It comes out of his salary rather than his cap hit, and those aren’t the same: his contract carries an $8.7 million cap hit but pays him $8 million in actual salary this season.
So here is what the standoff costs him if it runs.
What each week of this is worth
| If he sits until | Days | Forfeited | Share of his salary |
|---|---|---|---|
| One week | 7 | $288,660 | 3.6% |
| Two weeks | 14 | $577,320 | 7.2% |
| 30 November | 32 | $1,319,588 | 16.5% |
| 31 December | 63 | $2,597,938 | 32.5% |
| Trade deadline, 1 March | 123 | $5,072,165 | 63.4% |
Per game, it is about $95,000 — his $8 million divided across an 84-game season.
Hellebuyck lost ten per cent of his salary
Connor Hellebuyck did this six weeks ago, and it ended in a trade to New Jersey. He gave up just under $40,000 a day and, by the time Winnipeg moved him, had lost well over ten per cent of his $7.5 million salary — comfortably more than $750,000, gone, for the privilege of choosing his employer.
What his suspension meant at the time is the closest thing to a template this situation has. It took about five weeks.
Five weeks costs Larkin roughly $1.44 million.
Why he is spending it
Because the alternative costs more.
Larkin is 30 and in the fourth season of an eight-year deal that runs to 2031. He has one playoff series in eleven years in Detroit, a team that has not been to the postseason since 2016. He gave Detroit a ten-team list and, when nothing closed, stopped showing up.
His agent Pat Brisson’s statement was four words of explanation: “Dylan’s had enough of the situation.”
Put against five or six prime seasons somewhere that plays in April, a million dollars is a rounding error. That is the calculation he has made, and the daily rate is simply the price of making it.
Detroit’s side of the ledger is the opposite. The club keeps the salary, keeps the player’s rights, keeps the no-trade clause pointed at its own head, and keeps playing without a top-six center — here is how to watch them do it.
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