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Playing for his country always puts a smile on Dylan Larkin’s face and leaves a warmth in his heart.
The same could be said for USA Hockey officials anytime Detroit Red Wings forward Larkin opts to pull on the red, white and blue of his homeland.
Larkin scored the insurance goal in Team USA’s 5-3 win Saturday over Latvia, as the Americans improved to 4-1 for the tournament.
Larkin of Waterford, Mich. intercepted a cross-ice pass in the slot and fired a clearing attempt down the ice as he was falling down that found the empty net with 1:02 left to account for the 5-3 final. He’s the only USA player with a point in all five games and that’s got him feeling pretty good.
“I’m really excited,” Larkin said of playing in his third successive world championship. “It’s another opportunity to get better and have fun playing. USA Hockey, I always enjoyed playing for them and representing my country, so I’m really excited about it.”
Naturally, Larkin, much like USA and Red Wings teammates Jimmy Howard and Danny DeKeyser and coach JEff Blashill, who is in charge of the American bench in Cologne, Germany, would much rather be back in Detroit, playing in the Eastern Conference final. But this opportunity is much better than sitting at home watching others play hockey.
“It’s just more opportunity to learn from him,” Larkin said of playing for Blashill in an entirely different environment. “From talking with him and Torch (Wings assistant coach John Torchetti) and the coaching staff this year, towards the end of the year I think I made improvements on both sides of the puck and I want to continue that.”
Beyond Blashill, Larkin can also gain input on his game from every member of the Team USA staff.
“There’s another different voice, you can learn different tricks from them and have fun playing,” Larkin said. That’s ultimately why I go.”
There’s no question that his sophomore NHL campaign was an up and down struggle for Larkin. Asked to fill more responsibility on the roster following the departure of Pavel Datsyuk, Larkin at first found it difficult to adapt to playing center and also dealing with some of the NHL’s best checkers.
“You look up and see (the other) team’s best D,” Larkin said. “Toward the end they were watching Z (Henrik Zetterberg) so it freed up some space.”
The numbers reveal what a tale of woe the 2016-17 NHL season was for Larkin, 20. Playing 80 games, the same total he suited up for as a rookie, Larkin’s goal production dropped from 23 to 17 and his point total slid from 42 to 35. Most alarming of all, he went from a plus-11 as a rookie to a minus-28.
Blashill moved Larkin back to Zetterberg’s wing, both to get him going and to help rebuild some of his shattered confidence. When he was down in the dumps, Larkin got no sympathy from his opponents.
“They’ll eat you up and then it will get in your head and you’re screwed from there,” Larkin said. “I did learn a lot about myself. Hopefully the coaches learned about me.
“I thought I did come back strongly. You look at the last 20 games, I came back to playing center and had good times and bad times, and learned from the bad times.”
Larkin posted 5-8-13 numbers in those last 20 games. He had five points in Detroit’s last six games.
As the season ground toward an end, Larkin felt his game was finally beginning to heat up.
“Yeah, I did,” he said. “I felt a lot better. I felt like I had some really good chemistry with (linemates) Double-A (Andreas Athanasiou) and I’ve always have good chemistry with Abby (Justin Abdelkader). I felt good at center.
“I think it’s a good thing when they’d call up guys and you’re playing with them, so that means that Blash trusted me a little bit to put those guys with me.”
The Wings have no option but to put their trust in Larkin, because much of their future success hinges around his individual growth as a player.
“I want this team to be great,” Larkin said. “I want to be a good player and the only way to do that is to look in the mirror. You can’t have anything given to you. It’s not just going to magically happen.
“So I will put a little pressure on myself this summer and it will be good to feel that. I need to come back and do my part this summer and have a solid year next year.”
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