Detroit is on the cusp of a rebuild, why trade for an aging winger?

1) Franzen isn't going to play in the NHL again so he an LTIR and Detroit has little-to need to move him
2) Why buyout a guy that can just go to LTIR? He provides no cap benefits by doing so and you end up paying it an additional 2 years. Makes no sense.

Ok at 29 you are considered old.

Ok but is the trade FAIR.

In the NHL, unfortunately.

This trade makes no sense. Pacioretty is younger, better, bigger, faster, scores more than Helm. There should be a 1st pick in there from Detroit AT LEAST to make this fair. considering MTL is also talking Frazen's horrifying contract, I think there should even be other compensations from the Red Wings in order to make that trade thinkable.

Max to Detroit makes sense, but the Wings giving up Larkin is a non-starter. The Wings are 3-4 years along in their rebuild, with Mantha, Larkin, Zadina and AA making up the nucleus of a pretty good team. It's not hard to imagine Max would be a good addition to them and would be happy in DET long term as well. If the Habs want to use cap space, it would make sense to do so with the Red Wings. But the deal would have to be for Veleno or picks, not for a roster player like Larkin.