Red Wings star Dylan Larkin has been a key difference-maker for Detroit. And in this THN Archive story, Ken Campbell explored how Larkin has become so important to the Wings.
Detroit Red Wings star center Dylan Larkin is part of Team U.S.A. at the current 4 Nations Face-Off. And Larkin’s development into a key contributor for his Red Wings team was chronicled by THN writer Ken Campbell in the Feb. 15, 2016 editon of the magazine’s Rookie Issue:
DRIVEN
By Ken Campbell
The hamlet where Hall of Famer Pat La-Fontaine’s family settled when they moved from St. Louis is 35 square miles and home to 34 lakes, which means you can’t walk a mile without getting your feet wet. There’s Cass Lake, Clam Lake, Huntoon Lake, Little Silver Lake, Upper Silver Lake, Pleasant Lake, Loon Lake, Lotus Lake, Schoolhouse Lake and Wormer Lake, among others.
There’s also Our Lady of the Lakes Church, Christ of the Lakes Catholic Church, Williams Lake Church of the Nazarene, Great Lakes Baptist Church and Wellspring Bible Church. The town’s nature center alone has 11 ponds on it. And just in case you needed to be clubbed over the head, the Charter Township of Waterford has trademarked the term “Lakeland Paradise.” The serial number is 76611742. You can check that.
It turns out Dylan Larkin could take a hint, too. He didn’t grow up on one of the hundreds of ponds that run off those lakes in Waterford, but it was just a short walk down the street and a few backyard shortcuts to a pond that ran off Oakland Lake. It was there Larkin laboriously planted the seeds that have germinated into one of the best, and most unlikely, rookie campaigns in the NHL this season.
Sure, he’d play shinny with his older brother and cousins and the kids in the neighborhood, but what has him in the NHL at the age of 19 and in the conversation for the Calder Trophy is what Detroit Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill calls “unbelievable inner drive.” Long before the others would get there and long after they left, Larkin would be out on the pond by himself, working on his skills and finding his inner Zen. “Just me and a puck and a net,” Larkin said. “That was my childhood. Up here (in the NHL), you want to put up points and win, but there it’s just about hockey.”
