Larkin doesn’t model his game after the Wings legend, but the similarities in style and substance are there
Larkin doesn’t model his game after the Wings legend, but the similarities in style and substance are there
From the THN Archive: Feb 1, 2021 / Vol. 74, Issue 2 by Matt Larkin
“IT WAS HARD. REALLY hard. I felt like it was never going to end.”
Is Dylan Larkin talking about sitting out 10 months during the COVID-19 pandemic? Or enduring the worst season of any NHL team in 20 years? He’s referring to the former, but they’re interchangeable subjects in some ways.
For Larkin, and many players from the seven teams that missed the season-ending bubble tournament in 2019-20, not playing an NHL game between March 2020 and January 2021 was agonizing, sure. He got through it by working out, spending time with his girlfriend and becoming the proud owner of Ellie, a bernedoodle puppy. But for a center whose game consists of playing 20-plus minutes a night and dashing around the ice like a hyper dog as one of the league’s fastest skaters, it’s understandable Larkin felt caged up.
The season preceding the NHL shutdown on March 12, 2020, was like hockey prison, too. The Wings’ 17-49-5 record gave them a .275 points percentage, the lowest since the 1999-2000 Atlanta Thrashers’ .238 mark. Detroit’s season included losing streaks of eight, 12, six, nine and six games. It must have felt impossible to draw positives from the experience. Yet Larkin, 24, tries to. He points out that the Wings played their divisional opponents well, even beating the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Boston Bruins twice. He feels energized by the flurry of veteran signings that GM Steve Yzerman made in the off-season, adding the likes of Bobby Ryan, Thomas Greiss and Vladislav Namestnikov. Larkin sensed a difference in the team’s attitude and thus its identity as soon as 2020-21 training camp started. He managed to find a silver lining after the most trying season of any team in two decades.
Perhaps that sense of optimism was the final clincher when the Red Wings were choosing the 37th captain in team history, an honor Larkin received to start the season.
From a raw skill and results perspective, Larkin was an obvious choice. Since he debuted as a 19-year-old in 2015-16, he leads the team in games, goals, assists and points. He plays a ton, sitting ninth among NHL forwards in average ice time since 2017-18 at 20:57.
He’s also consistently asked to play a two-way game against opponents’ best forwards. “For him to be a great player, and I think he believes this, he’s got to be a great 200-foot player,” said Wings coach Jeff Blashill. “He’s got to be a guy who produces offense without giving much up. And he’s going to defend differently than some of the other great winning centers in the league. He’s going to do it a little more with his athleticism and his competitiveness, whereas a guy like Patrice Bergeron does it a little bit more just with his subtlety and his smarts. But I think Dylan can become a guy who can be dominant in those areas.”
The competitiveness and non-stop motor, more than any other trait, make Larkin captain material. His mentality is contagious in the eyes of Blashill, who classifies Larkin “somewhere in between” rah-rah leader and lead-by-example. Larkin doesn’t often deliver epic speeches, but he actively works to inspire teammates, even if it’s one at a time. “Last year we had some tough times, and I stood up and said how I felt, and doing that, if you stand up in front of the guys, you have to be accountable for your play,” Larkin said. “Normally, I just try and give little messages to the guys. Little things that will help us in the game or things we need to keep doing. Just pump us up and get the focus in the room on the game coming.”
Has being a captain changed Larkin? He doesn’t think so, nor does Blashill. He felt Larkin was pressing a bit to start 2020-21 but not because of the captaincy. It was because Larkin vowed to have a big year. And with the Wings so early in their scorched-earth rebuild under Yzerman, it’s understandable why Larkin may feel pressure to carry the team. The franchise is continuing its tradition of slow-playing its prospect development, which dates back to the Jim Devellano/Ken Holland era.
Larkin, Detroit’s 2014 first-rounder, is the current franchise cornerstone, and 2018 first-rounder Filip Zadina is cutting his teeth as a full-time NHLer, but the Wings are holding back 2018 first-rounder Joe Veleno and 2019 first-rounder Moritz Seider, not to mention Lucas Raymond, the 2020 draft’s fourth overall pick. The Wings chose to continue marinating all three in Europe and didn’t invite any of them to 2020-21 training camp.
For Larkin, who hasn’t experienced playoff hockey since his rookie year, does the wait for a young, high-ceiling supporting cast ever become agonizing? As usual, he searches for the glass-half-full perspective. He describes the feeling as excitement, not impatience.
He also has an ideal mentor to help him through these dark years in his GM. Yzerman, who became a captain at 21, toiled on some awful Detroit teams in the 1980s and only escaped the first round of the playoffs once through eight seasons. Yzerman also was one of the best in NHL history at finding a union between his scintillating skill and his intelligence, becoming a complete player and even a Selke Trophy winner in the second half of his career. There’s no better role model for Larkin to emulate. “I would like to, yeah,” said Larkin with a self-deprecating laugh. “He was quite the player, quite the leader. But he’s one of the greatest Red Wings of all-time. It’s hard, because I didn’t really get to watch him growing up. It was before I really remember watching hockey. So I just try and be myself and be a great two-way player.”
Larkin will keep working on his game, and it might not be long until he pops up on Selke ballots. Perhaps he’ll peak just in time for Detroit to start contending again. And when that happens, the Wings will have a fiery, well-rounded captain, hardened by playing through the toughest of times.
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