Larkin suffers growing pains during second Wings season

Gregg Krupa
DetroitNews-Unknown
Dylan Larkin was a teammate of Grosse Pointe Woods native Zach Werenski throughout amateur hockey.

Detroit — Dylan Larkin is routinely the last person off the ice after practices.

After the starting goaltender in the next game and regulars leave, the healthy scratches stay out for some more work. After they return to the dressing room, Larkin makes his way in.

The 20 year-old, second-year forward, who leads the Red Wings in goals and hopes for the future, is a rink rat.

“Always shooting the puck and working on ways to score and working on skating still,” Larkin said.

“Sometimes, you just like to be out there shooting pucks.

“Maybe I used to do that when I was a kid. You know, I always wanted to be on the ice and I’m still like that. Sometimes I like just stick-handling around and shooting.”

Larkin said the routine is essential.

“I think you’re learning every day,” he said as he sat the stool in front of his stall.

The first part of the season has not been the offensive explosion he had early last season, when he took the NHL by storm. His playmaking has been almost disastrous, with one assist on opening night two months ago.

Early last season, he was the clear leader for rookie of the year honors with 11 goals on Dec. 5.

This year, he has eight, which he achieved two weeks earlier last season.

Last season, his 10 assists by Dec. 5 gave him 21 points. Now, he has nine.

Against the Islanders last weekend, he was limited to 17 shifts and 12 minutes 48 seconds of time on ice, the third-least among the 12 Wings forwards.

Larkin said the comfort afforded him by the Red Wings and their veteran players during his rookie season was a big help. This season is a little different, however, especially playing far more at center than on a wing.

“I was kind of in a good position,” Larkin said of his rookie season. “I think I was trusted in my first year,”

“I think I was put out in all situations and I was able to feel like I could produce and, you know, just play.

“And nothing was complicated. I just went out and played.

“I think in terms of this season, right now, it hasn’t gone terrible, by any means. But you look at stats and there’s a bit of a drop off.

“But you know, I think as a team we want to be to a certain spot, and there’s a lot of pressure on myself to get us there.”

Adjusting on the fly

As Pavel Datsyuk’s decision to retire from the NHL to return home and play in Russia evolved publicly, it became evident who Henrik Zetterberg’s new sidekick in the lineup would be.

The kid from Waterford would assume the mantle.

Combine that with switching from wing to center — with the greater defense, skating, puck possession and distribution required — and it adds up to a far more demanding second season.

“I think, if you look at how it kind of tailed off last year — and having to learn last year how to kind of avoid that and be consistent all year -- I think it did take a little bit to get my confidence going,” Larkin said of his second season.

“And now that I’m playing center, again, I’m feeling a little bit more comfortable.”

It helps that amid nearly a couple dozen games of searching, Jeff Blashill and the Wings found some line combinations that click.

A pestilence of injuries has visited the club, but the players still hope the recent stretch of success firmly will establish some lines, like Larkin centering Gus Nyquist and Thomas Vanek.

 

Savvy scoring leader Zetterberg still setting pace for Wings

 

 

 

But that changed against the Islanders.

“Playing with Vanner and Nyquie on a consistent basis, it’s good for our chemistry,” Larkin said last week.

“I think if we just go out there and play and we’re trusted on a certain night, then we’re an effective line. And it’s fun to play that way.”

With Datsyuk gone, Larkin draws more notice from better opposition defenders, even more than did after a couple of months last season when opponents began marking him more carefully and his offensive production ebbed.

He also is dealing with some other facts of life in the NHL.

Among them, there is not a heck of a lot of room for anyone to score. And when you skate with pace and score at the rate of Larkin, opponents will do all they can to take away even more space and coaches draw up the Xs and Os to guard against him.

“I think I notice it a little, out against shutdown ‘D’ pairs,” Larkin said, with an air of nonchalance, as if to acknowledge there really is not much he can do about it.

Besides, it is a good sign about his play, a development he welcomes.

“You know, I’m not in their locker rooms, so I don’t know if there’s a strategy, but I want to play against the other team’s best line,” he said.

“I want to play a lot. I want to be on the ice a ton.

“And to be on the ice a ton, you’ve got to play against the other teams’ best lines.”

 

 

 

 

“I think you’re learning every day,” center Dylan Larkin says.

 

 

But he is eager for what that challenge adds to an already challenging task: Generating offense in the top professional league in the world.

“Today in the NHL, it’s hard to play,” Larkin said. “There’s not much out there.

“There’s not much space. You’ve got to find ways to create that space yourself and continue to find little ways to produce and find open ice.”

Not only is the ice not always open, but sometimes they also send rugged defenders after Larkin with the intent of tattooing him against the end or side boards, to hurt him, frustrate him and get him off his game.

It is a story as old as the league. When an apparent star begins to emerge, players physically test him.

Can he stand a beating issued via bodychecks?

“I think fighting through it,” Larkin said of his approach that seems, mostly, to allow him to avoid the harshest parts of the biggest blows.

“You’ve got to able to keep your feet moving and, mentally, just let it go.”

With another young, offensive sparkplug, Andreas Athanasiou, already on the shelf with a knee injury sustained from an aggressive body check, Larkin was hit particularly hard by Alexei Emelin last week, nearly putting him out of the game.

“The big one is when you are in danger and they’re trying to put you out,” he said. “But I just think you’ve got to continue to put your head up, and to know.

“I mean, look at Henrik Zetterberg. Guys have been taking runs at him his whole career and yet, he’s always got his head up, he always know when they’re coming and he avoids the hit and sometimes you see him come out with the puck.”

Still learning

Recently, Zetterberg and Vanek, two NHL veterans, complimented Larkin on his work as a center.

The switch is not easy, and Zetterberg and Vanek have gone back and forth from center to wing during their careers.

“For me, it’s the defensive part,” Larkin said. “Just trying to get the puck and get out of our zone as fast as we can.

“I think the first two games I was playing there earlier in the season, I was thinking too much and not playing, not reacting naturally, not using my hockey sense.”

Recently, he said, he has tried to simplify things.

“You know, come back, stop, pick up a guy, and when the puck’s there, win battles and go play offense and use your instincts to win those battles” Larkin said. “And find when there is the right area to go and when’s the time not to go.

“It’s about knowing when to go and when not to go, and using your instincts to do that.”

As much yearning as he may be doing for a better performance, personally, the recent rough stretch, when the Red Wings sent 2-9-1 in late October and the first three weeks of November, was particularly difficult, Larkin said.

“It was tough in the locker room,” he said.

“You know, it was a time when we had to figure out what kind of team we were and how we’re going to play, and how consistent we had to be.

“We’ve just got to look at that like every team’s going to have a stretch like that and, you know, that’s got to be it.

“We’ve got to continue to move forward and get better and make our game better so we can be a team that in April is playing and has a chance to win the Stanley Cup.”

gregg.krupa@detroitnews.com

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