The Hockey PDOcast - Dylan Larkin is 'the Man in the Middle'

Episode Date: October 30, 2023

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Darryl Belfry to break down Dylan Larkin's electric performance to start the year, the strides he's made individually over the past year or so, and how he's benefitting from the talent around him improving.This podcast was produced by Dominic Sramaty.The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

Since 2015, it's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Dimitra Vilippovich and joining me as my good buddy, Daryl Belfried. Daryl, what's going on? It's a treat to have you back on in consecutive weeks. Yeah, I look forward to it when we did the last couple. I'm starting to build this into my weekly thing I get looking forward to. So it's great.

I think our listeners are as well. Hopefully, we had to come back after our rollicking Miko Ranton and breakdown. Now, hopefully for our next muse, the following week will be better for him because I believe the avalanche was after our ranting and raving about how prolific that offense was. But that'll happen over the course of an 82 game regular season. There's a lot of ups and down. So I think that's just bad timing. We promised last time we would do Dylan Larkin next.

And we are men of our word. And that's exactly what we're going to do here today, probably sooner than expected. I kind of planned in my schedule. I was like, all right, every couple weeks, I want to make sure we get into a rhythm with these. But while Larkin and the wings are hot, I know they lost the past couple of games, but they're still producing and he's off to a fantastic start.

And while we're hot, while people are still loving these shows we're doing together, I thought we just had to get back at it, keep the momentum going. So we're going to do Dylan Larkin today. Where do you want to start this conversation? Because I think they've played nine games so far, and it's been an extension of a lot of the stuff he showed last year.

I think the talent around him is better. so it's kind of putting all of that maybe into more focus than it was allowed to previously. But I'll give you the floor here to segue us into whatever individual skills Larkin's been putting on tape that you want to discuss. Yeah. So for me, like I know Dylan quite well. I've worked with him for a long time. And I know a little bit more about the process that he's that he's had to get to where we're at right now. and the lean years in Detroit are very difficult, but also very valuable. And over the course of my NHL, the time that I've spent with players in the NHL, I'm starting to really understand the value of some of those lean years and what you get from it.

And the best example in where I want to start with Larkin is his presence in the middle of the ice and how fast he is through the middle of the ice and create speed from there. And early in his career, you know, he had started that way. He would really fast through the middle of the ice. And as the team was struggling, he would drift further and further out of the middle of the ice because the puck would get jammed up on the wall. the defensemen weren't able to get pucks and hit him in the middle of the ice. The wingers were not popping pucks to him in the middle of the ice.

So you kind of, you go once, it doesn't come. You go the second time, it doesn't come. So now you start going outside the dots. And so the discipline that it took to just learn over the years, stay in the middle of the ice, go out when the puck is loose out there. But if you have a chance to control the middle of the ice with your seat, speed. That's what you should do. So over the years, I found that he's just gotten better and better and better at the

discipline of being a center and controlling the middle of the ice, which is so important if you want to win in this league. And now you see him fast forward to where we are now, where Detroit is taking off. The thing that really jumps out at me is his control through the middle of the ice and his ability to catch pox with his feet moving, to make plays into the middle of the ice, or from the middle of the ice out. And you know, you'll also see like they have defensemen who can find him with speed in the middle of the ice.

He has wingers who when the puck comes around, they can field the puck and they can find him in the middle of the ice. So now you have a guy who's not really hesitating. And I guess that's my point of the story is like when he first started in the league, he wasn't hesitating either. He just wasn't getting the puck. Then you start drifting out of the, then you start drifting out of the middle. and of course when you get to, now you're not controlling any pucks in the middle and you're getting pushed in on the wall.

So then you have the discipline of staying in the middle, although the puck is not always coming there. Then there's hesitations that come with that because it's infrequent. Now you have a guy who's not hesitating at all because he has true belief that the puck is going to come there. And with his speed, his ability to control the middle of the ice now to me is a major factor why his line, him specifically, are able to really have been able to get off the start that they have. I think it's a real culmination to get to this point. It certainly is. And you think back to the start of his career.

And I think that was the thing holding him back the most in that regard. And I'm glad you started with this was just how Baron, I guess, the talent on the blue line was, right? After being such a strong suit of this organization for so many years. in his first couple seasons, especially when they really bottomed out kind of in that late 2010s range where they were the worst team in the league, there was just simply no one on the back end that could reliably and consistently get him the puck with speed. So he was having to either, as you mentioned, kind of try to cheat a little bit by getting out of his lanes to force the issue or having to do literally all the heavy lifting by going back almost behind his own net, retrieve the puck and then try to weave through the entire. defense, which is now had a chance to get set, and he's lost all the advantage he had that he might have otherwise had previously, right? And now, I still think they have quite a bit of work to do. And I know they've drafted a lot of defensemen over the past couple years and we'll hopefully

see more of that in flux. But even with guys like cider, Gostis Bear, Wallman, uh, there's at least players that can kind of give him a bit of that head start. And I think that's been huge for him, right? He all of a sudden doesn't necessarily need to go the full length of the ice, even though, you know, when it works, it looks beautiful. But I think a point would keep the, coming back to in these is that's not necessarily what an entire profile should be built on because those highlight real plays are very few and far between what happens in all the other repetitions we see throughout the game that maybe aren't as glamorous and that's a lot of turnovers, a lot of stopping and starting, a lot of running into walls where all of a sudden

you're playing one on three, one on four. And so, you know, even as even last year, where they were kind of starting to move up and get more talent as Izerman brought in veteran, reliable and HL players, I still saw a lot of maybe some of those bad habits that he had developed earlier in his career just in terms of sometimes doing those solo acts, right, Daryl, where it's like, oh, okay, I'm just going to go up myself because I'm the fastest guy here, but now I've run into a situation where I'm one on three, maybe my line may change, and now I'm just going to either turn it over or have a low percentage shot and give the puck right back. And this year, we're already seeing him because he's expending less energy, use that support better, right?

with a guy like the brink at as a running mate all of a sudden, he's kind of stopping short using that support, either trying to hit the trailer or trying to stretch the ice and kind of make a higher percentage more efficient play as opposed to just sort of running headfirst into a brick wall and hoping that he can come out on the other side of it. Yeah, and I think what you touched on that resonates with me as it relates to him is the ability to catch the puck with his feet moving,

whether it's a little pop play to the middle, whether it's a direct pass that comes to him to the middle. It's just the ability to catch it with his feet moving. And often when he was doing that, he would be miles ahead or all of a sudden be ahead of his support. So now he is going one on two because his support is not with him. And that I think is all of a sudden you have, I don't know, more team confidence that the puck's going to come out,

more team collective confidence that plays are going to be made, that he's going to get the puck with his feet moving. all of a sudden now people are able to get out on time and in the right spots i thought one of the very interesting guys as it relates to the development of of larkin is uh peron i think he spent quite a bit of time with peron both on the both in the power play but then also is quite a bit of five on five shifts last year and peron is one of those wily veteran guys who is not necessarily fleet of foot where he's going to be sprinting the neutral zone, but where he's very good is in the defensive wall. He makes a lot of plays. The puck comes to him, and he is a, and no matter how

it comes to him, it gets rimmed around, it's a hot potato coming, screaming around the wall. He can field it very calmly, and he can find the speed through the middle of the ice. Now, he might get left behind and the play gets, the play gets gone, but just the ability to trust a winger to be able to make that play is just a luxury he just hasn't had for the bulk of his career. And then you add now De Brinket, the best part about De Brinket coming is, of course, De Brinket's a finisher, and he's shown that since he started. And De Brinket also has a great understanding of how to play with great players, because he was able to play with Pat Kane and do really well there.

Where De Brinket is very good, in my opinion, is he plays also on the DZone wall. he is on his off wing. So he's on his forehand making plays there, which also gives him a chance to be able to make really good, very, not easy, but very like he's going to make a good play to the guy coming through the middle. Now, he used to, instead of passing to Larkin, he would go side to side, like from one side to the other

when he was playing with Kane in Chicago. And so you develop those skills very, you know, You had both of those guys playing on their off wing, and then they're like going dot to dot. Now he just has to find Larkin in the middle. And I think that those things have come on. And then Raymond has, I think, really come a long way in his, because it's the hardest thing to do as a winger,

particularly like Raymond's not really a big guy. And now he's got to make plays on the D zone wall and be able to make those plays. And now you have D that are giving them more direct passes. The puck is less on the way. wall. When it does get on the wall, guys are more reliable. There's less hesitation with Larkin. He's able to make plays with his feet moving where he can catch pucks with his feet moving. The people trust, people on the ice trust that that play is going to be made. So they continue

and they and they do their route as they're supposed to be. This is like a perfect storm that starts to come in and a great reason why these guys have taken off the way they are. Now, if you want to change, let me know when you want to change topics because I think that there's also a parallel with that what we just talked about with the Wings Power Play. And when we get to that, remind me and I'll go through that that's that diatribe. Well, I think, I mean, I initially expected that we would start with the Wings Power Play and that would probably carry us through at least two thirds of this show. So I'm glad we're at least getting to some other stuff early just to leave ourselves room for that later. But while we're on this topic and we will move out of that in a second, I have gotten a lot of questions about Raymond, right? because obviously as a high draftic with a ton of pedigree he comes in his first impression

in the league was phenomenal in his rookie year he had a bit of a sophomore slump or a bit of a rougher go of it last year and since i think game two or whatever right they put him up there with larkin and de brinket and it's a bit of a tricky transition for a young player like him because as you mentioned it's it's you run the risk of almost getting stuck as a tweener because you're not necessarily sure how you're going to contribute or what your bread and butter is going to be because while it's phenomenal that he profiles as kind of a dual threat player right where he's got the option of the shot but also i think he likes to be a playmaker all of a sudden if you're not elite or really really adept at one of those you get kind of caught trying to figure out what you're

going to do and where i think he's really done a phenomenal job this year and that line as a whole like to brink at it as well um throughout his career hasn't got enough for for his ability as a forechecker, right? As an undersized player who's not necessarily a burner, but he's smart, he knows where the puck's going to be, and he's pretty quick to anticipate and jump those plays. All of a sudden, those three guys with Larkin's natural blazing speed are causing a ton of disruption, a ton of turnovers.

And I think that's where you kind of, you want to manufacture extra offense his own touches. Well, that's certainly one way to do so for those guys. And all of a sudden, you can build and layer these positive sequences now where yeah if the initial rush doesn't necessarily work it doesn't mean the shift was a bust for you because all of a sudden you get back you put your work boots on and you stay and you still get opportunities 40 50 seconds down the line and that that line has done a really good job i think it's forecheckers so i kind of wanted to outline that and also talk a little bit about raymond because i've gotten a lot of questions

about kind of how he fits with those guys right because we we everyone's talking about larkin and how good they've been together and the fact that detroit brought into brinket with this express purpose, but I didn't want Raymond to kind of get lost in that shovel because he's obviously a big part of that sort of trifecta. Yeah, I think I really like like Raymond. I think he's got an extremely skilled stick. He's very good with the puck. He makes a lot of plays. He's got he's very slippery with the plays that he can make. He can shoot the puck. He can shoot it off the past. he can beat people one-on-one. Where I found that he needed to get better is,

one, there's a ton of plays that have to be made on the wall. And there's a lot of physical contact on a wall. Like I said, in the defensive zone is the first place where it really shows up. And if you can't make plays there, it's going to cause problems. Because all it does is that it causes you to spend more time in the defensive zone. And now you're not getting out. So that's number one. The defensive zone wall, I think, is a maturity aspect.

for many young players as they come into the league, regardless of how well they start offensively, you still, that area is going to pop up and you will need to figure that out. So that's one. The second part is the more time you spend in the offensive zone, the closer plays get to the net, the more things are going to get physical on the back wall and being able to not only make a place from the back wall, but also try to find higher percentage plays, which means you've got to stay in motion, fight through traffic, fight through checks. You're going to also need to reload to keep pucks in and hunt the puck.

I didn't always find that Raymond was as good in those areas of getting pucks back, being maybe harder to hold onto the puck. There's a whole puck protection piece that regardless of how big you are, you're going to need to be able to do that. And I found that he was maybe a little too easy to get pushed off the puck at times and kill offensive sequences prematurely before they really got started. And so I think that's part of the maturing process. And I think whether it's a, you call it like a sophomore slump,

I think it's just in general, a young skilled player with a great stick like him, who comes in the league and kind of lights it on fire a little bit to start, these things are going to pop up. Like eventually you will have to pay the piper. You will have to learn to make plays in the defensive zone. You're going to have to do that. You're going to have to be able to handle a pinch.

You're going to be able to have to make plays on your backhand. You're going to have to be able to take contact in those areas. In the offensive zone, you'll also have to figure out the back wall, playing through traffic, reloading, winning pucks back, tracking, hard to go get pucks back. All those things all have to happen. Otherwise, eventually, like, you just don't get the puck enough. And that was one of the things I questioned as he was making. his way through the last two years was, is Raymond a guy that just needs the puck on his stick and feel that rhythm? He's always been a great player, always been counted on offensively.

There were times where I wondered if he was getting the puck enough. And there's times I wonder in what goes on here in Detroit right now. I wonder if he gets the puck enough to stay in rhythm. And that is a real thing. Getting the puck in rhythm, puck's off the pass at a high, at a reasonable high frequency keeps a player in rhythm. And to the point in which they get infrequent puck touches, it takes their stick and puts it out of rhythm. So now they're not quite as on time. You see little hesitations in their game.

They bobble some pucks that they never would have done. They whiff on shots. These are indicators that the player is slightly out of rhythm. And so you wonder sometimes when you play with, like, the good news is you're playing with two great players who are scorching the league. The bad news is those two players have the puck a lot and you have D on your team that like to have the puck a lot. So you've got to find your way of figuring out the rhythm of the game

of how you can get the puck. And I think that's part of the learning process in Detroit with some of these young players that they have that are exciting, like a Raymond, is figuring out like where do I fit and how can I get the puck frequently? What's that going to look like? And part of it's learning how to play with some of these guys and what their tendencies are

and then figuring out how to marry that with you. But then also you got to put your work boots on. You got to put your, there really isn't a substitute for that. And that might be part of the maturing process that we're seeing a little bit with Raymond as he learns how to contribute to this line. Because I don't discount his value on this line.

I think he's doing a great job. I still think that there's room to grow where he can also pop and be even more important. But I do see a major growth in his game, the last in this year versus what we saw particularly last year. I think that's a really good point. And I love that concept of kind of try and define ways to manufacture additional puck touches, especially for younger players.

And it could be a tricky balance, right? Because in the case of a guy like Raymond here, not only are you playing with puck dominant players, but you're playing on a team. They're better now, certainly, but wouldn't exactly classify them as one of the better puck possession teams in the league. And if you're spending a bunch of your time all of a sudden, in the defensive zone or chasing the play

and you don't get the benefit of those long offensive zone sequences, then how do you sort of step out of the, you know, the scheme or what have you to manufacture those touches? I know that in your work with a guy like Nathan McKinnon, you've talked a lot about how, you know,

utilizing that sort of within the team concept, that high third man and finding ways to get him easier puck touches like that paid massive dividends for him and both the team for a guy like Raymond, it's a lot trickier. to kind of bridge that gap, right? Where it's like, all right, what can he do to get those touches? Well, it's a lot of the dirty work that you mentioned along the boards that isn't quite as glamorous.

And that's going to be a bit of a process, especially for a young player. Yeah, it definitely is. And it's a process because don't forget, every elite player has certain habits that lead them down a path to get more puck touches. And they like the puck in certain areas of the ice. So now you add another guy, whether you have, Larkin and then now you add De Brinket, they are also, they also have habits of where they want to have the puck and where things are going to be successful for them. How does that marry with your game?

And can you make sure that they get the puck when they're supposed to get it? And then where, not only where, but when they're supposed to get it. And then can you then find your puck touches of where it's more clean for you, of where you're most comfortable. And so often one of the reasons why a line doesn't work is because the way that two or two or more of the players on the line, the way that they want to play has inherent like conflict. Where I want to get the puck is and where I'm most comfortable getting the puck is not

as not a natural play for you to make to me and vice for or vice versa. And so now that's part of the disconnect. So in order for it to work, I'm going to have to leave the areas of the ice and the places that I, and the rhythm of the game offensively of where I want to be in order to support you. So then the line for sure is going to be less than it could be because I have to perform at a lesser rate than I'm accustomed to. And so it might be better for me not to play with you. It might be better for me to forge my own spot on my other line. And that's why sometimes you put a guy in another spot in the lineup.

All of a sudden he pops. You're like, well, he was just playing with an elite player. How come he's better with this guy than he was with that guys? Because now he can be in the spots that make him most comfortable and get the puck touches that he's most comfortable with, allowing him to play in a much more natural flow state of where he, of the rhythm of the game. And offense is very much about rhythm.

It's hard work, but there's rhythm to it. And I think sometimes that gets discount. And this, this Raymond who he would not be in his lifetime a third man on a line. He would always be either the feature player on a line where everything's coming through him and he's dictating the puck touches and the places the puck or he would be at minimum a second guy on the line. Now you could have a very good argument that he is the third guy on the line. So it's up to him to figure out how to contribute. It's a very, that's part of the process.

And then you've got to do that when you're under 20, what is he, 22, 23 years old. Like you got to figure that out. And there's not a lot of places you're going to go where people are going to tell you what to do. You have to figure a lot of that of stuff out on your own or work through it on the line. So it's not an easy process. And that's why I'm really happy to see the way that he's playing. Because I think he is starting to figure some things out and really expand the areas of the ice that he can be more effective. Okay, let's get into this power play.

I really want to hammer down on this with you because obviously it's been wildly effective so far. They're second in the league in power play efficiency behind just the New Jersey Devils. I mean, they're scoring at this point nearly 16 goals per hour of time with a manned advantage which is just preposterous. And Larkin helps facilitate a lot of that, right? The term you like to use is man in the middle. And he's right up there for my money with the guy like Braden Point as. the best in the league at that. Now they do it in different ways and we're going to watch some clips here and I know a lot of people listen to this on the radio and on the podcast and that's great if you prefer to consume this that way. More power to you. Thank you for listening. But if you have the time, I highly recommend searching out this particular section on YouTube so you can watch along the clips with us because you really need to visualize what Larkin is doing here and how he does it. It's really beautiful for me. It's very rhythmic. he works the middle so well and kind of hits all of the checkpoints.

And that's something that hasn't necessarily, you know, he certainly didn't come into the league with that skill. That's something I imagine he's worked on quite a bit to ramp up to this point. And it's good to see that the productions followed because last year, he was 10th in the league with 16 power play goals. I believe he'd had less than 30 power play goals total for his career in his seven NHL seasons prior to that. He's already got, I believe, three so far this year.

I wouldn't be surprised at all with how this power play is performing, to see him flirt with that 15-ish power play goal range again. And the way he does it and what he means to this group is really fun to watch. And I think that's an important part of this conversation for us. So what I think is fascinating about Larkin as the man in the middle is, and the reason why I have him really high, I also think he's in that point conversation as the best man in the middle in the NHL. And I think what separates him from everyone is you could,

argue on this Detroit power play that he is actually the quarterback of the power play from the man in the middle spot, which is extremely rare. Everything seems to come right through him. He is also perpetually open. His footwork is masterful in this area of the ice. And the way he stays open, he keeps his stick open, his footwork in how he stays, keeps his feet in a great spot where he could shoot or he could pass. A lot of pucks come through him and he's able to distribute from that area. But to have like a quarterback where everything is coming through him and he's making a lot of the decisions from that area of the ice is extremely rare.

And then he'll rotate not only from that position, he'll end up also net front and then fade off to his offwing side on the. down on the on the goal line and he can make plays from there when he started earlier in his career he was where you would expect a highly skilled offensive shooter to be which is on that flank either down are there a strong hill strong side downhill flank or on the off wing flank and i think and this is where this is where i think it's interesting of being on teams that struggle early as a young player is that you do have to figure things out because things just don't come the same way as if you're on a well-oiled machine

playoff team where things are just a little bit easier. You play with better players. You play in a scheme that fits and everything kind of works. When you're on a team that's a non-playoff team, like for a long time, you have to start finding other solutions. And you might have to think outside the box a little bit. So to take a guy like Larkin, and then last year, he went pretty much full time into this man in the middle spot,

I think is quite interesting because it is a little counterintuitive to take a shooter like that because Larkin's no joke as a shooter. He can shoot the puck. So it's very easy to be like, you know what? Like can we really afford to have a guy like Larkin outside the middle? And this is last year before they had the Brinket come in who is an obvious shooter on the flank. And Gostisperr. And Gospherr, who he's also been off to a great start in that regard.

So this whole thing with Larkin and being in the middle, and the way in which he operates and how he creates from the middle through his movement and creates passing lanes for the people on the flank or the guy at the bottom. One of my favorite plays that they have is when they go down and in. So they'll go to the guy in a flank. The guy in a flank looks like he might want to shoot. The guy at the net pops over to the goal line. The guy in the flank will send it down to the goal line.

Larkin, who was relatively high in the man in the middle spot, starts coming downhill on the net, and the pass gets goes down and right up into him, and he can one time it in that area. That is a huge area. The other one that I really like that they do is they'll go over and in. So they'll start on one side. They'll go over to the other side and then pop it in,

but he's already turning into that puck in the middle. The other thing I think is very interesting in this Detroit power play, which is very similar to the Tampa power play in that, they like their guys to be pretty close to the same spots. So they're not a team that will rotate their guys in and out of those positions, which kind of is like the new power play in the NHL for the last couple of years, is that you have these spots, this one three one and you have the spots, but those spots are all interchangeable.

People are moving in and out of those spots often. And you'll see even with Colorado when they were flying with their power play, excuse me, and McKinnon was on his. off-wing side shooting from there, you would see him move. He would move. He would rotate, guys would move. But this Detroit power play,

you'll see Lark in there and the man in the middle spot. You'll also see him on the goal line. But I would be remiss if I didn't tell you what I thought was the most impressive part about what I think about with this Detroit power play. And that is, if you go back to last year when they were, I think they were bottom third in the league on the power play in terms of overall percentage.

But they were doing interesting things last year. And one of the interesting things that they were doing was they were scoring or threatening the net a high percentage of time in the first 20 seconds of the actual power play. So if you go back, even this year and last year, you go through their power play goals, there is a high percentage of goals scored very early in the power play.

And if they don't score, the puck is coming to the net. They're threatening the net very early. And they started doing that last year, and it really caught my eye. And now, and they were scoring with it, but obviously not at the rate in which they're scoring now. But to threaten that early in the power play is also something that's a little different. Most of the time you see power plays, they get in, they win the draw. Everyone rotates into their position. There's a few plays that are made.

Then they start rotating and moving. And there's this whole like chess match that occurs. and then finally they start looking to create a shot. That's not this team. This team is face off thing, maybe one pass, maybe two passes, the puck's already on the net. And I love that. I think that that's a very, it's a unique part of their power play.

And they score a large percentage of their power play goals on those either, if it's not early in the power play, it's very early in a face off. So that's the other piece. It's like a face off win and then one to two passes later, the puck's already delivered on net. I find that to be a really interesting wrinkle to this particular power play. And like I said, it started last year and I thought, geez, that's got a lot of potential. And sure enough, like this year, it's really started to take over.

And it is something to watch with them. I love that. And another distinction this year for them is, you know, you get both to Brinket and Gosper. And the reason why I mentioned them there is all of a sudden, your arm now with two one-time options on both of those flanks, right? And we've seen that in terms of that quick hitting element of catching you off guard and quickly getting the puck to the net in a dangerous area is integral for that. And it's always stunning to me when teams, for whatever reason, bog their power play down by not having that optionality. And in this case, I mean,

part of what makes Larkin so good here is both the timing, but also the feel that he's gotten down to, I don't know if it's a science or an art form at this point, but it's been beautiful to watch where he's kind of working that funnel where all of a sudden he comes open, he presents himself an option. And then all of a sudden this year, something that I don't really remember seeing him do before, and maybe it's just because he's feeling more confident in that position, but also because he's got that shooting talent we mentioned. He's working that no look sort of backhand pass through the scene where, as you mentioned,

the quarterback element, he comes open in the middle of the ice, he gets it. and all of a sudden flings the backhand pass on the tape for a one-time shooting opportunity. It's just, it's remarkable to watch. I mean, how he works that and how he comes open to all of a sudden extend the play and make it easier for others is one of my favorite things to watch right now. It's really cool. Yeah, it's an outstanding point. The other thing that's really cool with this power play is Larkin and Perron are outstanding in puck recovery.

Peron is incredibly strong. He's very strong, especially on the walls, which we talked about. Larkin is also a back wall wizard. He's very good on the back wall. He's very quick on top of you. He's got a great stick. He can strip you. He's fast to win the puck's.

And then he also makes good interior plays, which is also a thing with Perron, and this is why I think it's really worked here this year is because Perron is an extremely good passer. And he can pass through traffic really well. well. So to move him from the De Brinket spot, which is that right shot, that right shot on the left flank, he moved from there to the goal line, I think has made a huge difference on that power play because rather than him having to figure out whether he wants to shoot from there, when really he's, I think, a little more naturally inclined to move the puck where De Brinket would prefer to shoot it. Like he wants to get a shot off the pass. I think that you get guys in now more, and this is what

I talk about about rhythm and where you want the puck and the top. types of plays that you want to make in certain places the ice, it really fits now with what Perron is really good at, with his back wall play and his natural tendency of wanting to pass and can thread a needle integrate into those spaces. I think that that's an under, that would be an under talked about aspect of why this power play has really taken off. But this to Brinkett, I think is an underrated player and has been for a long time in his ability to make plays.

As much as he's a shooter and he can shoot, he's a master of being able to shoot anything that comes near him. You don't have to have a perfect pass to him. He can slingshot it. He can shoot it if the puck slightly in front of him. He's got great feet to be able to get around the puck when he needs to. And of course he has a great stick.

But what also he can do is he can really make a pass. And we've seen that because Larkin, for me, is the quarterback on this power play and everything goes through them, you still need people to get the puck in there to set things up. And DeBrinke has been able to find that, not only that play, but DeBrinke can also make the downplay, and he can also go through seams to go find the play on the other side with gossip beer. So, like, to me, there's a lot of pieces here that really work

and guys are, like what you would say, in their more natural spots to be able to do some of the things. things that they do really well, which I don't think can be discounted. And when you look at the way the power plays were for the longest time was everyone had their spot and that was it. And then we've gone away from that. Most of the league now has some type of rotation and your goal is to catch the penalty kill in a rotation to now these guys kind of bringing it back where people are in their

spots. There's not a lot of rotation. I think it's really quite interesting. Well, and the Red Wings for our successals they've been have shown that as well, right? Where they sometimes they bring Larkin down to that goal line and then all of a sudden get the puck to him, give you a different look. And he brings it out and he scored a few times or set up to bring it doing so. I guess maybe that's the answer to this following question. But then, you know, once you show this enough on tape and not that you're necessarily catching anyone off guard by this, because they've been doing it for a while.

But if you keep performing at this level, all of a sudden, every single game plan, all of a sudden is going to be, okay, well, if we can neutralize this or, at least limit it to an extent or make life more difficult for them, we're going to have a much easier goal because they rely so much on their power play and they have even so far this year, a team like the Brasden Bruins, and maybe they're just uniquely equipped because there's always so good on an annual basis on special teams, in particular than a penalty kill. When they play them, they're so aggressive and they're kind of sitting on that and they're basically tell you, we're not going to let your best, most valuable player and your powerplay quarterback and Larkin get the puck where he wants it. We're going to sit on that.

to play for that other guys have to beat us what do you kind of do as a work around on that obviously there's other pieces involved and maybe you have to swing it around and hope there's a breakdown or you move larkin to that goal line and kind of get him set up from a different position but i'm kind of curious to see as the year goes along if they keep performing this well what the kind of cat and mouse game is there because i imagine it is coming at some point yeah i think that there's a couple of easy like not easy but a couple of natural adjustments that you start to make like the paron going to man in the middle and and larkin to go to the goal line is certainly one and you might start that way with the intent of rotating larkin back in the middle so you present a different look to then rotate and your

rotation is to come out of the look that you don't want to be in to go to the one that you want to be in is feels like a natural one. The other one is De Brinket is an excellent shooter on his strong side as well. As much as he's shown his one-time ability on the off side, he also is an excellent shooter on the off side, on the strong side. And it wouldn't surprise me to see them swing him over every so often and be on the strong side blank coming downhill on a catch or on a,

on him just carrying the puck downhill. And like I said, I do think he's an underrated passer and he may be able to make some plays in there. So I think there are some adjustments that they can make that would really, I think, be feasible and not be too much of a drop off in terms of putting guys in spots that they may not be as comfortable in. But I also think that if they were to establish another look or two, then they could rotate it from that look and present a false look of what they. really to the opposition and then rotate into what they really want, which I, which I think is part of what they're going to have to do because the longer that this gets, this gets rolling and stays rolling, they will, people will figure it out. They'll start figuring out what to take away. And once they figure that out, then it can come to a crushing halt. So they're going to

need something that they can go to that will also produce at a reasonable rate to be able to back people off. Yeah. I think people are starting to take notice. I mean, I've been, I've been wowed just by by Larkin's manipulation and dominance of that middle of the ice poor logic has them,

fourth in the league in shots from the slot this season, but also third in the league in passes in the slot. And so, I mean, I think that's sort of the next point that I want to touch on here is, as I always really thought of him. You mentioned kind of his shooting ability. I always early on,

I thought he was much more of that than this passing, the passing ability is shown. And maybe it was just the, you know, the fact that he didn't have this type of talent around him. So he was leaning on that more. But what we've seen from this season in his,

whether it is from the middle of the ice or off the back walls we're seeing here, I mean, time and time again, he's been able to find open guys with quick hitting timing based sets. And it's been really, cool to watch. And, you know, he's already got, I believe, 10 primary assist this season,

which is only behind the supernova known as Jack Hughes for second in the league. His personal career high previously was 26 or something. And he's got 10 and nine games. Now, everything's going in for them when he's on the ice. I'm not necessarily expecting him to keep chugging along at a primary assist per game pace or even better than that. But it's clear that he's going to set a new career high doing so. And maybe it's as simple as just he's got better. like he's passing to the brinket he's never really had a player like that to pass to before and good things are going to happen and more goals are going to result but i really do think like his passing from all over the offensive zone has really taken a massive step up this season

so in years prep previous i felt like his best playmaking in the offensive zone was actually off the half wall uh he was a he was a pretty good passer off the half wall the difference this year is a lot of his plays are on the back wall and if you notice on the back wall, the trick to the back wall is movement. You got to be in movement. If the puck gets stopped in any way, it's going to be very difficult to make any interior passes off the back wall, anything that's going to be threatening.

And in actual fact, if the puck gets stopped, the odds of your team keeping the puck is going to be really low. Like it's just a once the puck gets stopped, especially on the back wall, that is usually advantage for the defensive team who's looking to break out. So what you notice with Larkin is there's a couple aspects to it. One, there's a lot more side change using the back wall that allows them to skate on the first touch, either with the puck or into the puck.

That is a massive thing. So like we're just watching the plays now on the video that you have. And they're great examples because there is a lot of these plays are precipitated by a side change. Or the side change is being utilized as part of the back. wall play that allows him to skied on the touch. And that is, that's a major part of being able to find passing lanes. So if you, if the side change is so important because you have, most teams are playing some type of a shrink style defending when the puck is in the corner or on one on one side.

So you have the tension of that group on one side. and then now you switch size, they have to rotate. And if you use the back wall to rotate and you can skate on a touch, as they're rotating, because you're skating on the touch, the passing lane continues to maintain or in actual fact can elongate. And so now the amount of space that that defender really has to cover in order to defend the passing lane is significantly higher. Now, why that's important is when a person is skating on a top,

touch and they're elongating the passing lane, all of a sudden, DeBrinquit has a half to a full second more time to adjust his feet, to adjust his route, to get in the space that he wants to be in. So now when he gets the puck, he's ready to go. When it happens so fast where you don't get the side change, you don't have people being able to get in rhythm and in timing because it's too quickly. Or the puck carrier is forced to make a play before he wants to make a play. That's why skating on that touch on the side change is so critical. You don't have to go with the puck. You can come back into the puck. That's not an issue. It's the fact that you're still in motion. And I think that that's what really matters. And we're seeing that a lot with this with this line.

Now, the hard part too is if you were playing on a team that wasn't going to make the playoffs, that means you're probably spending a ton of time in the defensive zone. If you got a puck touch on the back wall, would you be inclined to throw a puck into the middle of the ice? And no, because you're not, you're not playing with people who can score from those areas. So the, the highest probability of that play is actually a breakout for the opponent. So now you want, you know, you're behind the net. You're making a pass out, starting their breakout because it wasn't the play, either didn't connect or it did, but the person wasn't able to do much with it or it gets

blocked. Sure enough, now they're going down the other end. This is the process of learning to win and learning to be on a good team from when you were not initially. Larkin, who was not very good on a back wall or very proficient over the course of his last few years when Detroit was starting to kind of turn this. He was better on the half wall. Why was he making those plays from the half wall? Because it's easier for him to reload, get above people, and be in a better position to defend. So a lot of it is environmentally, environment related in terms of the situation and the growth of the team.

It impacts your star players. And that's what we're seeing with Larkin. And it's just so fascinating to see the conditions start to put him in places where he can show some of these other aspects that, you know, I've seen for the last few years as I've worked with him. but that he now has the right spots on the ice for these things to happen. And that just can't be discounted. So much of this league is situation. The situation that you're in is really important. The line you play on, the strength of the line versus the line that you're playing against,

the amount of offensive zone time that you can have. These are all things that stack up for an offensive player. When those things are not available, it's really difficult to overcome your situation. And to see like a Larkin get 70 points on a team that perpetually loses, like misses the playoffs, like that's incredibly, you don't have talented you have to be to do something like that.

It's really tough, right? So to see him start to come unglued now that this team is a lot more prepared with better players to play with. And now he can be in these better situations to see him come alive like this. like as someone who's worked with him for as long as I have, it's just so exciting because he's a wonderful, wonderful person who's been through a lot here in Detroit, and he deserves to win here at this point.

Well, I'm sure he benefited a ton from a lot of those early career reps as well, but one of the kind of luxuries of, you know, adding players around him and all of a sudden having more depth and more talent is that now he's kind of settled into a spot where he's playing, what, 1922 a game this year, kind of 19 and a half.

He settled in that past couple of years. Early in his career, there was a year where he played like 22 minutes a game. And that probably, I mean, you want him out there as much as possible because he's that good. But just with how he plays and how sort of doggedly he pursues the puck when he doesn't have it, it's not like this is a guy who's kind of just gliding around waiting to get into the offensive zone. He's making things happen all over the ice. All of a sudden now, he could probably, I imagine, kind of, you know,

he's completely uninhibited. He can just empty the tank on every shift. because he knows that he doesn't need to be right back out there for the team to avoid drowning a few seconds later. So at the same time, I still think they have quite a bit of work to do as you saw in the Boston game. If you can find a way to sort of limit them or slow them down a little bit at five on five, things can kind of grind to a halt and they can get stuck in the mud. There's still a lot of work to do. I think they've been a bit fortunate with how often they're scoring based on the types of stuff they're generating.

But I like what I see especially from this group. And that's kind of why we wanted to highlight them here today. Are there any sort of parting shots or last notes that you wanted to get out there before we sign out here? Yeah, just the whole thing of there being on a team that's missing the playoffs and perpetually. And, you know, you're trying to like turn the corner and get things. There is such a thing as too many minutes for a young player. And, like I said, situation is really important. But the advantages of those things is you learn how to defend,

you learn how to get pucks back, you get a little more desperate in terms of trying to keep pucks in the offensive zone, you reload much better, you track heart better, you learn those skills because you have to do them so much. And you're on the defensive side so much. And then as your team gets better, some of the things that you're more naturally gifted at,

like seeing it offensively, they start to piece itself back together. And I think that's some of the stuff that we're seeing. I agree with you. I think that this Detroit team does have a lot more work to do. I don't know that they're done or ready to go where they're ready to win. But I do think that these early signs are very similar to last year, where I felt like I was seeing some seeds being planted that were may not going to come to fruition that. year like the like the whole idea on the power play of that quick strike from the face off that was a seed that was planted that they had kind of built into their arsenal that wasn't going like it wasn't they were still a bottom third of the team team on a power play but that was a great seed that was planted that now we're starting to see coming to fruition and I'm starting to see some of these other things pop up here as well and the growth of some of these players like whether it be Rasmussen or Valen

Villano is starting to come on. You know, those types of players, their growth and development is going to be what's going to dictate. And those are, those could be the seeds that now are the things that bloom in this particular year. And they'll need it because it's

incredibly hard to win in this league. All right, Gerald. Well, that's all the time we have for today. It's a shame. I want to keep talking with you, but we'll have to put a pin in it and come back and do another player next time. If people enjoyed this, I highly recommend they go follow you on both Twitter and Instagram. where you're posting kind of shorter, more bite-sized videos.

And then we come here and we get to expand it in a longer platform. So that's always fun. And we'll be back. We'll maybe let the listeners kind of let us know how they're feeling about this one. And then what they want us to do next and kind of maybe pick our new muse for us. So we'll do that soon. And yeah, that's going to be it for today's show. Thank you for listening to us.

As always, streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network.