Eight Days. No GM. The Larkin Clock Is Running.

The window to sign Dylan Larkin to an eight-year extension is closing in roughly a week, and the Red Wings still don't have a general manager to pick up the phone. That's the situation as of this morning, and it's worth stating plainly: Detroit is approaching one of the more consequential contract deadlines in franchise history without the person whose job it would be to navigate it.

Larkin logged 26 goals and 44 points in 48 games last season, leading the team in ice time at over 20 minutes a night. The NHL just ranked him among the top 20 centers in the league. He is, without much argument, the player the organization is supposed to be building around. The eight-year extension window exists precisely for situations like this — a team locking in a cornerstone before shorter-term deals become the only option. Once that window closes, it closes.

Christopher Ilitch announced a formal GM search in early August, signaling a deliberate process. That process has not yet produced a hire. Whoever comes in will inherit Edvinsson's restricted free-agent situation, three injured forwards, and a defensive structure that fell apart last spring. The Larkin deadline lands before any of that gets sorted.

My read is that the organization will find a way to handle this — interim authority, ownership direction, something — but "find a way" is not a plan. It's a workaround. The Red Wings have had a lot of those lately.