Dylan Larkin has formally requested a trade out of Detroit, and the market for the Red Wings captain just opened wide on Thursday morning.

He is 29 years old, coming off a 67-point regular season in 74 games, with 9 game-winning goals and a 14-goal power play output.

That last 10-game stretch before the season ended? He went 5-6-11 with 3 power play goals.

This is a legitimate No. 1 center still in his prime. Those do not hit the open market every year.

Steve Yzerman will not give him away. Detroit finished 16th overall at 41-31-10, and the organization needs significant rebuild fuel. Expect the ask to be steep.

Now, the Bruins. Marco Sturm's team finished 45-27-10 with 100 points, and Don Sweeney publicly acknowledged after the season that Boston still lacks a true first-line center.

How a Larkin trade reshapes the Bruins' center picture

Any deal for Larkin immediately changes the calculus around James Hagens, the 19-year-old who appeared in just 2 regular-season games and 3 playoff games this spring.

Does Boston accelerate Hagens' development by clearing a path, or does landing Larkin push the prospect back to Providence for another year? There's no clean answer there.

Fraser Minten finished his first full NHL season at 17-18-35 in 82 games with a plus-21, which is quietly one of the more encouraging numbers on that roster.

If Boston trades for Larkin, Minten likely settles into a secondary center role. That is not a bad outcome, but it does reshape what management thought this group would look like in two years.

Larkin carries an $8.7 million cap hit. Fitting that number in requires moves, not just phone calls.

The Bruins won't be alone in this. Every contending team that needs down-the-middle help will be calling Yzerman, and the Detroit GM has zero incentive to rush.

Larkin has a say in where he ends up, which means the destination is not purely about who offers the best package.

Boston checks the hockey boxes. Whether it checks his personal ones is the real question nobody outside that negotiation can answer yet.