Not that anyone needed to be told Detroit was a mess, and not that this contract even pushes them into a worse situation. He’s a perfectly good player with room to grow, but if you’ve worked yourself into a corner where Larkin is a $6.1 million player for you, that says a lot more about the people who are still, inexplicably allowed to run this franchise.
Put another way: You don’t have to pay non-franchise players like they’re almost franchise players just because you don’t have anyone better than that. Unless you’re the Red Wings, I guess.