Dylan Larkin is magnetic.
The Detroit Red Wings rookie is a star in the making. At 19, he has the speed of a youngster but also a veteran’s feel for the game. His typical play is to skate up the wing, find a seam in the defence, then when the defence reacts he finds a new seam or passes to an open teammate.
This is a lot harder than it sounds. For most players, that would be a formula for turning over the puck or getting mashed by a defenceman.
But Larkin is hard to hit. He always seems to be at a bit of an angle, never quite erect, and so never in position for an opponent to check him properly. His is an elusive game.
Typical Larkin play, from Friday’s game against the San Jose Sharks: Larkin corrals the puck at his own face-off circle. He zips up the left wing, “and away he goes, Speedy Gonzales!”, gushes the TV announcer Mickey Redmond, himself a Red Wings alumnus.
At centre ice Larkin, in full flight, angles to the right. By the time he is at the San Jose blue line he is in the midst of three Sharks – Brent Burns, Paul Martin, Joe Thornton – all of them wanting to pounce on him.
But before they can do it he dishes a pass to an uncovered Tomas Tatar on the right wing. Tatar has plenty of time to wire a wrister home for the goal.
Larkin is unlikely to win the rookie-of-the-year award. With Connor McDavid injured, Buffalo’s Jack Eichel is the front-runner.
But Larkin is right there in the following pack, with the Arizona forwards Anthony Duclair and Max Domi, the New York Rangers’ Oscar Lindberg and the mammoth St Louis defenceman Colton Parayko.
Through 18 games, Larkin is tied for second on the Wings with 12 points (five goals, seven assists). But what is more remarkable is that through Monday’s action his plus-minus rating of plus-12 ranks among the top four players in the league, yet no one else on the Wings is better than plus-3.
Larkin is both exemplar of, and exception to, the “Red Wing Way”. Exemplar in that he plays an all-around game, is highly skilled, is not especially rugged, and was a smart draft pick, chosen 15th overall. He would probably go top five in a redraft.
Exception in that the team actually had a first-round draft choice. Usually, the Red Wings trade away their picks for players who can help in the play-offs, which the Wings have reached for 24 successive seasons, and, most notably, exceptional in that he is the rare player to make the team as a teenager.
Detroit are renowned for keeping their players in the minors, often for several seasons, until the team feel they are ready to play the game in all its aspects. But Larkin has forced his way onto the squad.
If the kid has one drawback, it is his lack of physicality. He is on the slim side and will need to beef up to withstand the NHL grind. If he lasts the full season, he will be the first teenager to do so for Detroit since 1983/84.
That year, two players achieved the feat: Steve Yzerman and Lane Lambert. The former was a slick forward who is in the Hall of Fame. The latter had a solid, if not stellar, career.
When Detroit fans watch their Wings, you can guess which one of those two they perceive in Dylan Larkin.
rmckenzie@thenational.ae
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