Denver Barkey Reflects On A Largely Successful Season And An Even More Promising Future
Denver Barkey's star was launched into the stratosphere during the 2023-24 season, where he burned intensely bright—and shows no sign of burning out anytime soon.
Megan DeRuchie-The Hockey News - Denver Barkey Reflects On A Largely Successful Season And An Even More Promising FutureFor Denver Barkey, the 2023-24 season was, overall, a raging success.
He was already locked into the mindset of wanting to get better with every year, and he knew coming into the season that he would be afforded more of an opportunity to showcase his abilities with the London Knights.
"Every year, you want to improve," he said. "As you get older in London, you get more ice time and more opportunities, so coming into the year, I knew I was going to get more opportunities and more ice time."
A spanner in the works appeared when he found himself getting cut from Canada's 2024 World Junior team—a disappointing blow that left Barkey with a bit of a chip on his shoulder.
"I wanted to prove myself—going to World Junior camp and not making it...it stings for a bit," he admitted. "I used it as a motivator. After that, I had something to prove and prove them wrong. I think that helped fuel my second half, and I know I had a pretty big month after I got cut from the team. [I didn't] let it bring me down."
That's a bit of an understatement—he recorded a 102-point season, establishing himself as a significant contributor to the Knights' dominant playoff run, which culminated in an OHL Championship. If he wasn't on the radar of fans before, he certainly he is now.
For Barkey, however, he wasn't focused all that much on the numbers.
"There's always little numbers, but that's not my main focus," he explained. "I kind of take it day by day. Every day I want to tackle something different and keep bettering myself on and off the ice. I don't really look at the end goal, just take it day by day and week by week, and focus on each game, every shift—all the little details that get you to the big numbers and those big goals that you strive for."
As the 2024-25 season approaches, one of those big aims is to be more of a leader in the Knights team.
"The first goal is to be the older guy on the team now, and even last year I took on more of a leadership role," he said. "I want to be a big part of that team on the ice, but I also want to be a leader and someone that the younger guys can look up to and [model themselves] after."
Getting on Team Canada for the upcoming World Juniors tournament is also on that list, along with "just preparing myself and getting ready for the pro game and just continuing the same kind of thing that I did this year."
The preparation kicked into high gear when Barkey officially signed his entry-level contract back in March—but first, he had to deal with the London Knights' X account tweeting out the news earlier than he wanted them to.
“I was on the bus, we were on our way to a game, and I knew it was supposed to be coming out, but I didn’t want it coming out on a game day, I didn’t want all that commotion going on during a game day," he recounted. "I asked them to do it on—I think it was a Sunday—where I had a day off. We have guys on our team on Twitter, like, 24/7, and two of them saw it and then it got deleted, and they asked me and I just denied it. They were like, ‘Oh, that’s weird, London just posted it,’ and I was like, ‘No, bro, I wish I signed!’ I kind of deflected it and then the next morning, it got released and they were all kind of pissed off at me, like, ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ It was funny.”
All jokes and premature announcements aside, signing the contract was a huge step in his journey to achieving a lifelong dream of playing in the NHL.
“Obviously it’s a bit of a relief," he said. "That was one of my goals at the beginning of the year was to earn a contract with the Flyers...There’s a lot of excitement to know I’m gonna spend the next three years here. It’s a big goal that I’ve strived for all year and your whole life, that’s something you want to do is sign with an NHL team and give yourself a chance to play in the AHL and NHL one day. It was a super cool moment for me and my family and friends and all that.”
Another cool moment? A rather unexpected opportunity to collaborate with rapper Snoop Dogg, whose Death Row Hockey clothing line features pieces with Barkey's likeness emblazoned on them alongside NHL greats like Arber Xhekaj, Georges Laraque, Ryan Reaves, and Chris Nilan.
“Basically, [Snoop Dogg’s] manager reached out to me, it might’ve been last year, and he grew up in London, Ontario and his family are London Knights fans," Barkey said. "Turns out, we share the same last name so he reached out to me on Instagram about a year ago and just said, ‘Hey, I’m a huge Knights fan. I’m Snoop Dogg’s manager,’ all that stuff, so I had his number from that.
"Then a couple months ago, he reached out to me to do the whole Snoop Dogg collab. It was pretty cool. I didn’t really believe it at first, I was like, ‘Maybe this guy’s scamming me,’ but I had him reach out to my agent and we got that all set up. It was a super cool moment, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
With so much personal and professional success to build off of, it made this year's development camp a much-anticipated event, especially having close friend and Knights teammate Oliver Bonk by his side.
“It’s cool, it makes it a lot easier just having a familiar face," Barkey said. "We came here last year and we didn’t really know anyone, so to come with each other to the camp last year and having a familiar face around, it helped us get comfortable around here and watching each other grow and watching him grow as a player...He’s got a really bright future and this whole experience so far has been really cool, and hopefully down the road we continue to stick together and watch each other grow.”
Apparently, having Bonk around also led to a new nickname being bestowed upon Barkey—"TK Jr."—first seen in a comment Bonk left on one of Barkey's Instagram posts.
“Yeah, it is, it is," Barkey laughed after being asked if the nickname was a reference to current Flyers star Travis Konecny. "After the main camp last year, when we went back to London, he started to call me ‘TK’ around the room and ‘TK Jr.,’ everything like that because he thinks I play pretty similar to him. Some of the coaches and training staff have started to call me ‘TK Jr.’ this week. It’s pretty cool.
“He’s a top-end NHL hockey player, so it’s gonna take a lot of work to get to his level, but he’s an undersized guy. What I like about him is he’s not afraid to go in the corners, he’s not afraid to mix it up and get in front of the net and give a guy a whack or a cross-check or finish a check. He’s obviously someone that I like to watch because, with smaller guys, you’re kind of on a shorter leash so you have to play with intensity, and you’ve got to be gritty, you can’t be soft, so he’s a perfect role model and I’ll be watching him closely here at main camp.”
And, in case you were wondering, there's also a bit of a story behind his given name (although it has nothing to do with Colorado).
“I asked my parents this a while back, and I think I asked them again a couple years ago, and I was so confused because I get this question a lot," he recalled. "I wasn’t really sure why they chose it. My brother, his name is McLeod, so I guess they really like unique names, and I think they said they had a relative whose middle name was Denver or something and they just liked it so they went with it.”
Barkey is unique in ways that go far beyond his name—he's a clever, creative forward with a motor that never stops running and an energy powerful enough to dictate the pace of games. He can maneuver flawlessly between opponents, skating so effortlessly it almost looks as though his blades don't touch the ice. Your eyes can't help but follow the #86 jersey whenever he puts in a shift—you never know what trickery he might pull next, and you certainly don't want to miss the magic when it inevitably happens.
He credits that skill to the Knights' locker room, a tight group not unlike this now-famously good-vibed Flyers team.
“It helps a lot," he acknowledged. "We’re all really competitive, that’s what makes us so good. We bring the best out in each other every day, and that helps us a lot, just having people around you that are like-minded and high-talented hockey players that have a lot of work ethic.
"It helps a lot of us, and with the young guys, we show them the way and what it takes to become a pro and an NHL draft pick one day, so I think we all have come together and we work together and we want to see each other succeed. We’ve got a really cool bond going in London. Hopefully, if everyone comes back this year, we can go on another long run and win it all.”
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