The Hockey PDOcast - Film Club - Dylan Larkin's impacts at both ends of the ice

Episode Date: March 8, 2023

Jesse Marshall joins Dimitri to talk about what they see on tape when they watch Dylan Larkin, how he's able to be so effective at both ends of the ice, and the strange career arc he's had leading up to this point that leaves us wanting more for him.This podcast is 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.

dressing to the mean since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey-PedioCast. My name's Demetri Philpovich, and joining me is my good buddy, Jesse Marshall. Jesse, what's going on, man? Good to be with you again. I'm excited for another segment in the film room. Well, it's actually called the film club.

But, you know, what? Film club. Yeah, we can. It's in the film room, though. Yeah, it's in the film, and we're in the film room. That is where we take a player. We grind tape on them, and then we talk about what we see. and kind of just like nerd out on the intricacies of their game.

Just as a reminder for those keeping track at home, the catalog so far, we've got Sidney Crosby, Jason Robertson, Josh Morrissey, Timo Meyer, Mikey Anderson, Kevin Fiala. Quite a list of names. No William Carrier yet. Still on there. He'll be on there eventually. And so yeah, that's what we're going to do.

So I guess we, let's tee up the conversation here. Let's just know why we pick Larkin, because you also wrote about him and that kind of ties into this. And then what makes him sort of a worthy muse for us here today? Yeah, I think, so first of all, like, during the chaos, right, of the trade deadline and all the insanity that went into that. You know, I thought that Detroit did a really good bit of business to lock him up on that, you know, basically $69.5 million extension for eight years, the captain of the team. I said to, you know, you pay attention to Detroit. I had to pay attention to Detroit peripherally a little bit. I watched Detroit games, but I said, like, I really want to sit down and, like, do like,

a deline a work and appreciation segment because I feel like anytime you watch him, you know, there's so many tropes in hockey, Dimitri, that I love. And one of them is the concept of being a 200-foot player. And I always say, like, what does this mean? Like, we see this thrown out. Like, I see it get used all the time without an explanation of what that means or looks like. or what impact that player is having at all 200 feet. And I wanted to kind of explain that

because Dylan Larkin's defensive returns are really good, right? I think for a forward that's as talented and good as he is offensively, his defensive returns are really good. And it's easy, I think, to chalk that up to playing in the offensive zone a lot, right? Well, his defensive returns are good because he's always in the offensive zone. That's not like not really the vibe that's going on in Detroit. They're in the defensive zone a lot, unfortunately. So what is he doing that's making this impact and what is he doing in the defensive zone that's benefiting him everywhere else on the ice demetri, which landed me as like a final point here.

And it's sort of the concept of him constantly being what I call the FIFO forward, which is first in first out, right? You'll see him the first guy back to help out in the defensive zone. He'll abandon, you know, he just reads the place so well. He knows organically when to get back and assist, when there's a gap, when he can engage with another four to knock them off the puck. But he also understands the importance of zone entries. So, you know, you're not seeing him like jump the zone or abandon his post. This is like an organic flow for him where, you know, he just ends up not only being the first guy back in the defensive zone, sometimes the deepest guy, but oftentimes the one that's either kickstarting the breakout or getting the first pass on the breakout that allows him to be a little. elite, and I don't use that term lately, at zone entries. So there's like a very much, you know,

that to me, Demetri is what 200 foot hockey looks like. When you have a guy, you know, pressing the play from behind his own net, yeah, I posted a clip in my article of him, coming back to help his D out with a breakout, right? Stealing a puck, giving it to them, helping them get set, and then working his way to the outside and making himself available to get the first pass on the breakout that he just established. And I said on Twitter, it's akin to a quarterback throwing a pass to themselves. Like you don't see that happen all the time. So it's just, you know, it's hard to paint sometimes a front to back, complete picture

of how one player can impact three separate phases, defensive neutral zone and offensive zone of the game. But then when you sit down and you watch Dylan Larkin, you just watch Dylan Larkin, it's not so hard to put that package together anymore because it's almost inherent in his business every single night. Yeah, I mean, it's fresh on my mind because I spent the entirety of my morning. I brewed a bunch of coffee and then I just sat down and fired off the Dylan Larkin tape and, you know, just soaked it all in its glory. And my biggest takeaway was just what a, what a likable player.

You know, I don't think anyone could watch Dylan Larkin, especially like on a nighted, night out basis and just go, you know what? It's just not for me. Not my type of player. Like, you know what? I think he does, and you sort of touched on that there, you know, at least Njohn. essentially, like, he checks so many boxes or he does so many things that regardless of what, or what your sort of interests are, tastes, are preference, or player, you're probably going to see that from him at some point and sometimes in the same shift. And so I think that's what's

cool to me in that, like, in these times where, you know, everything's so divisive, like, like, players can be so polarizing. For me, Larkin is just such a player that's just, like, so easy to become enamored with when you watch them play. Yeah, 100%. You know, you mentioned who doesn't like Dylan Larkin. It's probably something that doesn't really like hockey on them. I don't think you can not be a fan of Dylan Larkins. Well, they're probably not listening to the show. I don't think. Yeah, right. There you go. But yeah, no, I mean, like, there's something in there for everyone, right? I mean, at the end of the day. And I think, you know, if you're a fan of physical hockey, you know, this is something you and I were talking about earlier. He can do that. He's not

wasteful in that. If you like guys that are, you know, old school third line shutdown center and their mentality you could get in the defensive zone and take somebody away you could do that and there are only seven forwards at least at the time of the writing or the article I did last week and specific to corey's tracking for the all three zones project there are only seven forwards in a league that carry the puck in the offensive zone with a higher rate of success than Dylan larkin a couple of those are like Mitch marner jack hughes you know really good players right he's in some company up there man that in terms of his ability to carry the mail. So, you know, it's a not, it's, it's, it's a no-brainer decision from Detroit to, you know, it's, it's almost from, from the GM perspective, Dmitri, you can put this

player with any wingers. It doesn't make a difference. You got somebody who's defensively irresponsible and you don't trust them, put him with Dylan Larkin. You got somebody this really good defensively that you want to, maybe have a little bit of a scoring shutdown lab, put him with Dylan Larkin. It doesn't make a difference. I mean, to me, it's like he's sort of this, this, this neutral transmitter that can be aligned with anybody and is going to be able to play off of them successfully. Okay, well, let's get right into the good stuff. I want to actually talk about like the specific defensive traits and then and then the offensive traits. And I understand that it's a bit tricky, especially with him to separate the two because as you mentioned, like they go so hand in hand, right? It's kind of like all part of one fluid motion in a sense. But let's try to isolate them and kind of talk about what we see and what makes them effective in those specific areas.

So I'll let you pick. Do you want to focus, start off with the defensive side of things and those habits and then transition into the offense, which he often does so, so seamlessly, or do you want to go the other way? Why do we do that? Yeah, because that is, I think it's kind of a foundation, I think, for sometimes a lot of what happens afterwards. So I think it's a natural place to begin. Okay. Well, give it to me. So you mentioned some about how he's kind of like, you know, the first guy back.

You know, that's sort of a staple of, like, you look at the gold standard of forward defensive excellence in Patrice Bergeron, right? part of what makes him so special is especially as a center, he never leaves the middle of the ice. He's basically always makes himself available in this one predictable place where his teammates know he's always reliably going to be there. And so if they get the puck, they're able to get it to him there right away because they know he's going to be there and he's going to be available for a pass. If they're playing off the puck, he's always going to be there to either back check and lift your stick or knock pucks away to prevent chances in front of his own goalie. And he's like, it's kind of like a metronome, right? It's it's, it's clockwork. You know,

exactly where he's going to be at all times. And Larkin, certainly, because he's an entirely different player, right, he relies much more on his skating and physical ability. And that way, it's not necessarily as tight in that regard. Like, you'll certainly see him move much more around a defensive zone. But similar to that sense, he's very reliable in how deep he gets in his own zone. Exactly. Proactive, I think, is just defensively the word I would look for, right? And I think a lot of forward sometimes, and this is even true as centers. They're gliders in the defensive zone, right? So they're there. They're present. They're, they're in the defensive zone, but they're not really impacting anything. They're not making contact with anyone. They're not taking

a lane away, right? They're just in their general, their general area kind of cruising around. I think that Dylan Larkin on tape proactively identifies areas of concern, right? Head on a swivel, like up, looking around, where's the threat? You know, systematically, because of the way Detroit plays, you can always kind of find him in similar areas, right? And he doesn't really deviate from this typical, I think, center area of influence. But, and you see this in the video I posted in my article, you'll see him in the slot, head on a swivel, kind of looking around, trying to figure out what's going on, identifies a threat, gets to them, gets a stick down, makes a play on the puck,

and then boom, that's what transitions and leads him off to the other direction, right? So I got to go back to this point where, you know, yes, you need to be a good skater to be able to cover the amount of ice surface that he covers and have this huge 200-foot area of influence. But for me, it's the sort of just innate understanding of what his role is, where he has his impact as a center. And it's almost like having a radar, right? I literally is Dylan Larker. He's like this forward radar where you could see the bell go off for him and these video sequences and him get in and go. And it's like, no, this is my guy. This is my line.

I see this happening before everybody else. And then there's a physical engagement there, right? And we talked about this on several shows, is there's easy to be wasteful physically, right? That is a 100% of thing. Chasing hits, getting out of a position. You know, finishing checks off sometimes is just a thing that happens and doesn't have an impact on the game.

With Larkin, it's in and out, right? He comes in, pushes you, physically pushes you off, takes the puck and goes. It's not an elongated drawn-out process, right? Like, it's just, it's physicality for the sake of removing you from the ability to play the puck. And he does that with, you know, elbows, midsection. You know, I think his hip check is classic. Like, you could put it in an encyclopedia and people from 1980 would be like, wow, that's great.

It's timeless, really. And I think that it's just those elements, right? The physicality, the willingness to engage in it, and then the ability to proactively identify the area of concern and get there before everybody else. It's all with the intention of getting possession of the puck back and getting back the other direction. And, you know, when you mention, I think when you mention the strong and elite defensive forwards in this league in each, like these are traits that they all possess, right? But I think from, from Larkin's perspective, there's an extra level of aggression there where, you know, he's a super willing participant in this

stuff. Well, and I think also another wrinkle to this is, you know, you mentioned that ability of his to take the puck, carry it seamlessly in transition, and enter the offensive zone with it. I think the delineation between when the defensive possession ends and when the offensive possession starts is a fascinating one to consider. Like in the NBA, for example, you can make the argument that defensive rebounding is technically like a defensive stat because it marks the end of the other team's possession for you to be able to secure the ball means you have it all of a sudden the other team does it. Now you can transition to offense. And similarly with him, I think his ability to cleanly transport the puck in that way is a big part of it.

Now, I think we tend to think of that more as an offensive skill, right? He's taking it. He's moving downhill. He gets into the zone. Typically, he shoots the puck. All right, that was an offensive possession. That was an offensive skill, Dylan Lurken displayed. But in this sense, I do think that is also a key component of why you see the defensive metrics he has because he has that in his bag as well.

Sure. The origin of these offensive traits and offensive showcases the play. what's on is, you know, the stuff that we're talking about now, the mindfulness defensively, you know, the awareness, the stick on ice and ability to break up a play and, you know, quickly transition. And that's all, that's all it is. And I, you know, for me, behind every good play he makes offensively, more often than not, there's something he was doing, you know, 100 feet further back on the ice that led to that moment. And I think I posted so many clips of like, you know, for, you know, you'd be happy to get scoring chances out of these.

situations to meet you, but they're goals, right? They're verifiably goals. And there are situations where he's the, like, again, I go back to that concept of being the first player in the defensive zone, right? But then also simultaneously the first player in the offensive zone to also do something that's setting that play up, you know, and his, you know, we'll get to this. I'm sure when we transition to the offensive side, but a lot of what drives his success offensively is the same behavior that's driving his success defensively. And, you know, you always hear this comment. And, you know, you always hear this concept of a heads-up player, right, of a player who's heads up all the time. And I think, you know, I make all these little freeze frame edits in my videos where I try to capture that moment,

you know, like the moment where his like, in the defensive zone, like, you can clearly identify the fact that he is seeing what's happening. His posture shows it. You know, he's up looking at the situation, identifying the play and making a move, you know, based on where his head is pointing. So it's just you can, you can point out awareness on video. I feel like it's something that's very easy to find. And, you know, we talk, you know, I'm sure we're going to get into his puck distribution again and the things that you can do in the offensive zone. But it's the same talent that ties all this stuff together. And there's a common thread linking all of this skill. It's a vision. It's having your head up to use the vision and being able to digest what's going on

in front of you. Well, and his usage really caught my eye as well. And I think it's very like sort of instructive on where he's at in his career. Yeah, I noticed like over the past couple years, they've really dialed back as 5-1-5 usage. There was a time there, and I think part of this is at a necessity or maybe, you know, speaks to the roster composition they had. Like, when they were at their absolute lowest, he was just chewing up like 16, 17, 5-on-5 minutes per game, which is like a threshold you very rarely see for forwards. And they've dialed that back down to around 1213 now, but they've replaced it with special teams utility, right? And then part of that is the powerplay where he serves the bumper and we can save that for a bit down the road here.

But also on the penalty, he'll, I believe he's like their second most use forward. They're now behind Andrew Cobb. And I think that's also a testament to some of these habits that we're seeing from him and the coaching staff clearly, like, entrusting him with a bigger responsibility there as well. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, that that enables him, I think, to give you so, like, to your point, right, the way that they were grinding him down at even strength, I mentioned just a minute ago,

the amount of ice he was covering Demetri. This is why I want them to put a little chip in the, like, the players. Jersey, give me all this info. I want to know how many miles Dylan Markets skated last night. And I want to see like this area of influence mapped out in public. Because I just, this is one of those players where I really feel like you could get a ton of really good information from something like that. Well, on the note of turning defense to offense, I said you this clip that I found while I was watching tape of them today of a recent game against the senators and those two games certainly didn't go well for the Red Wings as a whole as a team, but there was an isolated

event there where Timi Shetflah is trying to kind of transport the puck out of his own zone, and he's already one of the better players in the league at doing that, right? Like, very few guys can catch him. And Larkin basically tracks him down and as cleanly separates him from the puck as you're really ever going to see, and then quickly turns around and turns that into a scoring chance. And SporeLogic has him at 15th in the league in chances generated off the forecheck. And so I think that's huge, especially for our Red Wings team. We're going to talk about this more in a second, but they like really struggle at 5-1-5 in particular to generate meaningful sources of offense.

And so to have this is quite a luxury, right? To have your most important forward be able to create some of these easy opportunities off of plays that are sort of broken down and aren't necessarily traditionally like conducive to offensive success. And let's, to paint a portrait of how impressive this is, right? you talk about these like these turnovers off the and scoring chances off the rush and all that he can do with that the level of competition that he faces

and you talk about his deployment he's getting a tougher deployment from a competition perspective than nine really in the percentile wise 98 percent of the league yeah that that's unbelievable his quality of teammate percentile demetre is a 56 yeah you rarely you rarely see a gap that big right generally players who play against other teams best are also playing with their own team's best players. Exactly. And I think you talk about like this, this is just again, speaks to that utility

where you could you really use him as like a Swiss Army knife in any kind of situation against really good talent. And, you know, you mentioned it was Timmy Stutzel that time. I've seen it. We post a video all over that. He's doing it to everybody. And again, there's only a handful of guys in the leap right now that, you know, are transitioning to the puck better than him as a forward. So, It's just, to me, it's just so rare to see a forward, deep in the defensive zone, coming back. I posted a video to meet you where there's, it's just chaos for Detroit on the breakout, right? They're disjointed.

Their defensemen aren't in a position where they can do anything with each other, right? It's like the red sea between them, four checkers down both their necks. Here comes Dylan Larkin, Cape On, back in the defensive zone. No, I'll take it. You know, it's just like having an ability to give your defense in that emergency outlet. It's like a quarterback checking down, right? Like you're giving him a safety net to not get blasted in the face and potentially cause a turnover. Like these are moments that, you know, he's deviating from the plan, right?

He's recognizing the situation. I'm calling a change himself and saying, you know, I've got to do something about this. I just those moments to be are just so impactful because there's always this question in the community. You know, we talk about intellects. What makes somebody good defensively? What are the behaviors and the habits that create good defensive impacts? Here they are, right? That's it.

I mean, he inexplicably had a really, really awful year defensively last year. When outside of that, I mean, you get those whole body of work. He hasn't stopped doing this stuff. It's just that ability to make that call and understand, you know, you know, I have to step in and make a play here. Well, he also has to earn everything the hard way, right? You mentioned about going back and having to oftentimes do the heavy lifting himself from deep in his own zone.

Like, that's great as having that in your back pocket of a safety valve, but the degree to which they rely on it is not ideal, right? Moving forward, if you want to see the best idealized version of Dylan Larkin, I think for him to thrive, it would be kind of used more sparingly in that way, being able to save some of his energy and make plays up the ice and have players who can actually, you know, regularly get him the puck in stride, that would be a nice luxury that unfortunately he hasn't really been afforded for much of his career to this point. And it just seems like everything he does as we're transitioning to offense, he earns everything the absolute

hard way, right? Like, he never, if you look at the points and stuff like that, he's never going to get easy points. Like, it seems like everything he gets is through really, really, hard, diligent work of his own. And so that makes the fact that he's had the production he's had over the past two years, I think even more impressive to me. Yeah, I use the old adage is watching somebody put their waiters on to walk through quicksand, right? It's very similar to that.

Yeah, I think that I'm going to get back to like his hip check, right? Everything that he does physically is just so fast. I think he leaves, I don't know if you got this vibe, but I feel like he leaves a lot of players feeling confused about what just happened. You know, you'll be in the cycle, you'll be in the boards, you know, moving the puck along the wall, and then all of a sudden it's like a lightning strike. You know, boom, you get moved, you don't have the ability to make a play. You're completely dispossessed. He's off the other direction. That's just, you know, it's very tactical, right?

I think that was probably the best word for it. But it's such a huge part of what he does. so strong. That's really what it comes down to is he's so strong that, you know, not only can he come in there and do that to you, Demetri, but if when he widens himself along the boards, when he's in transition and skating with the puck, and he makes himself wide and gets those arms out to protect the puck, there are a really big strong defense that come in on him in that position and try to muscle him off the puck and just bounce off him like a leaf. I mean, he's, he is really, really difficult to handle when he can bear down and use a center of gravity well and gain some leverage on you.

It's, I mean, your best bets to try to make a play on the puck, frankly, you know, get in his way, try to run a little legal interference and I hope you get a stick on it because it's, he's a very difficult player to move. Okay, should we segue here to the offensive side of Do you have any other notes? No, I think that's fine. No, I think that's fine. Yeah, no, it's totally fine. Okay.

You know, so you look at the Red Wings right now, you look at his playing environment this season. They as a team have absolutely nothing going on in terms of like meaningful sources of offense around the net. Like you look at their team's shot chart on Micah's website and hockey viz, and it's just like a big blue blob pretty much from the net out everywhere in the slot in the circles. And then they have like a few red areas kind of like on the,

the peripheries, right? Like the worst spots in the offensive zone up against the boards near the point, like where you don't want to be shooting from. And they have very few players at this point who can sort of unlock the other team's defensive structure, who can cut inside, who can get the puck to those areas. And he's one of the few guys you have. So when you see him sometimes create those plays, it's like these brilliant solo rushes where he's almost having to go coast to coast and weave in and out of traffic and, you know, get the puck under the defender's stick and and sort of leverage him that way and make it all happen himself. And I feel for him because while that looks beautiful when it happens,

it's a really tough thing to rely on. It's so tough to have the puck on your stick for that long and then have to make that many plays in succession without something happening along the way to stop you or slow you down, right? And so that's kind of the barrier he bumps into sometimes in the sense that he has so much on his plate in terms of creating offense that I think it can be very limiting to him. And it's a shame because I think there's just so much more untapped potential for him to achieve.

And hopefully that happens while he's still, like, in the meet of his 20s and not when he's like a different type of player heading into his 30s. 100%. Yeah. So I mentioned that like we talked about his ability to cross the blue line with possession. And you just painted the picture. And you're running the, you're right, by the way, running the gaunt like that is a nightmare. It's not a strategy, right? It isn't.

It's hope is what it is. Yeah. Hope is not a strategy. You know, when I was doing the research for the article, I want to go back to the heat maps from hockey viz for a second, because when you look at Larkin's performance, look at the Red Wings performance with Larkin on the ice, they're plus 1% relative to league average and expected goal generation.

And I remember looking at that and thinking, that's not that good. Like, what's going on there? But then you look at the Red Wings performance without Larkin, and they're 20% off the mark with regards to their ability to keep up to the league average. and expected gold shares. So the fact he is literally dragging that team up

and keeping their head above water and making things happen. I talk about the zone entries. You can talk about the shots off the rush. How about the fact that there is no one living in the same universe on the Detroit roster as him in terms of passes that lead to a scoring chance? He's not only is he doing all the stuff

and again just bolstering your point here, crossing the blue line with possession, shooting it a ton. he's literally the most elite puck distributor on the team at the same time. So you kind of get the sense that, to your point, everything good that happens oftentimes is coming off the stick of Dylan Larkin. And that's like a really tough position to be in. I mean, like, you know, you got like a couple players in the mix, but like it's Lucas Raymond, you know,

like is sometimes the name that you'll, you'll commonly find like David Perron. and like, you know, again, like, these are nice complimentary players. But when you talk about offensive depth, you know. I think Raymond's a great fit for him long-term stylistic. Oh, sure. But he's also a 20-year-old who's, like, making the transition from coming over from Europe last year. And it's a lot to put out his plate, right? And so I like that fit long-term, but like just relying on him to the degree that they've had to is also, like, a problem in and of itself.

Yeah, 100%. But, I mean, like we said, the extension of influence that he has. in the offensive zone is just is super grand it's almost like there's nothing that he's not doing to support this team and I have to go back because I was mentioning this earlier denature but like you can his patience is unbelievable I think that's the thing that stood out to me I didn't focus a lot on his offense when I wrote the article because he felt like that's the more uh billboard part of his game right the game the part that I think people sometimes are more familiar with but when Detroit does establish a possession and they do get the puck in the offensive zone,

he'll wait. I mean, you know, he's so good at carrying it. Like I mentioned how strong he is. He goes on these journeys, I think sometimes where, you know, he's behind the net, up, up the wall, up along the point, back down. Like, if the lane's not there or he doesn't like it, you know, you rarely see him trying to shove a square peg into a round hole, right? He's got the ability to be able to be that sort of on-ice commander.

where, you know, it's okay, I'll take care of business until, until everybody else kind of, you know, finds their space or gets where they need to be or gets open or, you know, gets off that defender or whatever it might be or for our defensemen aren't available. Like, let me hold on a second. It's just an immense amount of patience offensively that, you know, kind of belies his age in a lot of ways, I think. It's interesting you say that because I actually, I had a bit of a different take on it watching his tape. And I actually say

one of my few critiques of his game and where he has a room to improve as a player is sometimes his shot selection or decision making off the rush. Like I think once they get set up in the office zone, you certainly see a lot of that patience and his willingness to the cycle around and keep the puck on a stick

and wait for things to open up. But sometimes I feel like and part of this might just be out of necessity. He might just literally be tired and just want to get the puck off of his. stick because he's had to take it from deepness zone zone as we've talked about. But sometimes he gets in and I feel like there's a better play to be made, whether it's kind of stopping up and cutting back or waiting for a trailer. And sometimes he just sort of like from an off angle chooses to

shoot a low percentage shot on net. And I think there's potential for growth there. Now part of that might just be because of the supporting cast he has. He feels like he has to do too much. He's gassed at that point, but I do think that incorporating some of that patience into his rush game might actually lead to even greater gains for him offensively. I think the data agrees with you on that, though. Like, I think if you look at the data returns from him so far on the games that Corius track, it says that same thing. Like, it's not that there's a volume maybe perhaps to his.

Which is fine, because he literally has to do for them, right? Yeah, you're right. Yeah. I mean, I think that's probably the reason why. I mean, if you look, is he's got. a gross number of D zone exits, right? A higher number, I think, than you would see usually for a forward, which is a testament to some of the stuff we're talking about,

but he's got a ton of failures there too, right? The data doesn't necessarily paint a glorious picture of his ability to exit the defensive zone successfully, but that, I think to me, is more of like a volume problem than it is. And, you know, we talked about how great his puck skill is. And I think it's kind of just a situation where he's in, he's sometimes finding himself in positions where, you know, like you said, he's having to run that. not went. It's not necessarily working. He sometimes got these plays where like, and they've been in the offensive zone for whatever, 20, 30 seconds, and there's kind of like a rebound or a loose puck that appears

high in the zone near the wall, and he goes and he gets it. And then he displays that patience and ability to like, he kind of like circles or loops back high in the zone and then quickly cuts back in and uses that funnel in the middle of the, in the middle of the ice to actually like do like a net drive or get himself in a better position and make a play from there. And that's kind of what I'd actually like to see him do a bit more off the rush. I understand, you know, sometimes, especially if you have the numbers game where it's like the three on two or whatever, you feel like, all right, I just want to get a quick shot off here before the other team can get set. But I feel like sometimes maybe slowing down a bit and getting himself into a better position might actually create other

opportunities for him that he's not fully utilizing at this point. So I didn't want to be like overly critical of that because it's a very small thing. And I think part of it is also out of necessity. I think in an ideal circumstance where he was surrounded by better players and what into these positions where he could just float a bit more sometimes. I think you'd see that from him. And so hopefully that is kind of the next step for him. But that's kind of what I see on his tape, at least for this season. Let me throw this one at you, too.

Let's take a break here before we get into another conversation. And then when we come back, don't forget what you were going to say. He'll jump right back in and I'll let you float that to me, okay? Yeah. Okay. We're going to take our break here. You're listening to the HockeyPedio cast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. Big guests and bigger opinions on everything happening in Leafsland.

Real Gipper and Born. Be sure to subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Take that. All right, we're back in the Hockey Pedyocast with Jesse Marshall doing a deep dive of Dylan Markins game. Jesse, right before we went off to break, you were going to bring something up, so I'll give you the opportunity here on the floor to get into it. Well, no, I wanted to talk. because you were talking about physicality.

You were talking about low center of gravity and the ability to make yourself hard to move. Did you feel like when you were, because I know you went on your coffee bender this morning and watched on team, did you feel like you noticed a lot of his scoring chances and goal scoring opportunities are coming off like second, third opportunities in front of the net? I think that all ties together, right?

I think he's an extremely difficult player to move out of the way. And I think while this is where my take is on this, Demetri, while a lot of defensemen are focused on moving him, he's focused on whacking that puck in the net. So like, you get these guys that kind of like gang up on him and they're giving him the business in the back, they're trying to move him out of the way. And they're not taking away his faculty or ability to score, right? He's still there with a stick available to him and a loose puck to, you know, continue to go to work. And I almost feel like he's one of those guys. You got to get your stick. up into his stick, you know, try to wrench him upwards, right, and keep that thing from being on

the ice because you're not going to move him, right? He's like a, he's like a, a pillar down there. At the same time, if you focus on just that, you know, the guy's so relentless. And he doesn't make any friends in front of the net, you know, and I think that the second and third opportunities, you know, he'll find him and he'll convert him if you're not focused on, on taking that scoring ability away as opposed to just, you know, trying to be all muscle on him. Well, it's a very unique set of skills because I totally agree with you in terms of that that strength below the hash marks and around the net in unison with the speed he displays in open ice and in transition.

And watching that tape, I couldn't help to think that the best comp forum in today's game is Braden Point. Do you think that's crazy to say? No, I don't think so. They're totally different players. But they're not in terms of the impact they have and the way that they go about having that impact. I mean, look, at the end of, here's the thing, like, I keep going back to the zone entry point, right? But like, when I think about Braden Point, like, I think about a guy who's really good

at dispossessing people and going back the other way. He's a really nagging kind of player. When he crosses the blue line with possession, you know, typically really good things happen. And, you know, I think these are players that, you know, ultimately, Demetri, having similar impacts, even if they're not necessarily going about it in the exact same fashion. Well, the reason why bring that up is because you see especially now with how Larkins utilize kind of in that bumper and how he makes himself available there I think points finishing ability from that area his his ability to kind of open himself off to take a quick pass even despite the traffic around him and still pick his spot in the top corner is definitely a better skill than you see from Larkin.

But what may be interested in that is I think for all of points ability to transport the puck and thinking of him going coast to coast and carrying it up and scoring all these dazzling highlight real goals. One luxury he has is this ability to play off the puck as well where he's able to sort of sprint up the weak side and get lost in space. And then all of a sudden, Nikita Kutrov just hits him in stride. And by that point, it's lights out for you as a defender. He's basically able to just cut through that gap there and get to the net unbeated. And Larkin at this point, because he's never gone to play with a player anywhere near Nikita Kutraov's caliber, isn't afforded that opportunity, right? He generally has to take the puck himself. And I think it's,

it's a bit wasted because I'd actually love to see him play with a skill distributor like that that was able to make that happen for him because I think he could just absolutely carve up opposing defenses as if he was able to attack and transition off the puck a little more than he has been able to so far. Yeah, like something I give him the ability to walk off the wall a little bit and get into like those big, those big time lanes. Like somebody that could work out of the corner for him and feed him Pox while he's making those drives I agree with you

that's it's so much you know it's what's impossible almost I mean to do that stuff by your I mean you can't I mean it's just it becomes too telegraphed so I'm 100% with you it is almost a little bit wasteful I don't know what the solution is either though right

like in their current construction like what you know what's the better alternative for him I don't know the answer to that question but it definitely it with his with a skating ability, where I think, you know, he doesn't, like you said, right, he doesn't have that like world-changing elite shot. There's nothing, I think it's hard and accurate. You know, that's it. It's not world beating. But you, like, a player like that that can distribute like he can, that can see the ice like he can, that's the player I want coming off

the wall and going into those high, those high danger lanes. And, you know, being the, point man on that stuff. So it's tough to do. that in the situation that he's in, but hopefully they get to a point where they can, you know, start to utilize them a little bit more creatively with some of the time he's getting on special teams especially. Well, and the other thing, the reason why I brought up kind of the point Cobb is, you know, Point has made a name for himself with these long playoff runs where his game has translated so well to that and you really become a household national name, right? And for Larkin, similarly, he just hasn't been able to get there because of the team around him. And you

watch him play, I really do believe that if and when the Red Wings get to a point where they're having extended playoff runs with Dylan Larkin on the team, people are just going to fall head over heels with him, right? Like, he has the type of game where you're going to watch him play during the first, second, third round, and he's just going to be grinding out some of these plays, and you're going to watch that and be like, wow, like, this guy is so much better than I thought he was because it's going to kind of like open people's eyes to a whole new level of his game. And so hopefully we get there, and hopefully it happens for him, because I, I really do believe that, like, that is in his range of outcomes in terms of just winning people over.

Yeah, and all of the time I spent watching him, I guess that's the one thought that never crossed my mind is how, like, a carbon cut he's seen for the postseason and for that kind of hockey specifically, right? There generally tends to be less time and space, right? It gets tighter, it's harder to create. the game kind of closes in on itself. You know, all these little micro things become so huge. You know, all the stuff that we talked about today, you know, that all kind of, I think, plays into that. He's the kind of player, Dimitri, that like after a good round, like a good debut in the postseason comes in, wins around. That second round montage they cut for the beginning is going to be all about his leadership, right?

And like, it's like, no, man, he's just really good defensively. That's what it is. And his skill set elevates the players around him to a level that, like, people think this, it's this magical ability to speak in the room. I don't know, man, maybe that's true. But in reality, like having a player that does this stuff in the defensive zone and cleans up this kind of stuff and, you know, that's, you really can't beat that. I just looked it up while we were talking about it because I was interested.

He's a full, you know, you talk about cycle and rush offense and stuff like that. he's a full three points relative to league average higher on cycle and offensive a cycle and four check offense per hour at even strength and the rest of the league so and he's just unbelievable and he's 13th and rush chances as well like you see that element of his game and he has to do it all himself as I mentioned sometimes if you could if you could just skate into plays and not have to lug it up the ice himself I feel like that would be even more optimal he's definitely a lead by example type of player right like a lot of those trades we've mentioned kind of tie into that. And I was thinking also in preparation for the show just

about what a wild career arc he's already had. Like if you go back to 2015 when he makes his debut as a rookie, it's the 25th consecutive year that the Red Wings make the playoffs. It also marks like the end of that run for them. He's on a team in that rookie season and he's playing a big role on that team with Datsuk, Zetaberg, Tatar, Nyquist, a 35-year-old Brad Richards who retired. after the season. Nicholas Cronwall, you go on down a list of just like, you know, the who's who are leftovers from from that previous Red Wings era. And then just like that, after the next season, Babeladu Kleeves, they don't make the playoffs again since. It looks like they're going to miss again for the seventh consecutive year. And that sort of is the idea

that I kept coming back to of like, man, not that it's a wasted opportunity because he's still young and he's still in his prime and I still think there are bright days ahead for this and for him on it as the captain, but I'd like to see them get there sooner rather than later because I don't want to be looking back at his career five, six years from now being like, ah, what could have been because it really feels like he is the type of player that would thrive in that setting. 100%. Yeah, and that's a good point.

I mean, he's been there to see, like, all. By the way, how long is Brad Richards in the league? I know. Unbelievable. You said that Amos fell off my chair. No, I mean, yeah, and he's, you know, there's, I think a level of, appreciation from him especially in terms of like

what he's been through I think for that franchise up to this point. I think that again I want to lean on the fact that I think you do have a good general manager up there who is just the malleability

that's the word I'm looking for here, the malleability of Dylan Larkin I think Dimitri to be able to play with whoever you could put with. At the end of the day, I keep going back to this and I mean you mentioned earlier, I'd love to see him play with somebody that's a little bit more of a puck carrier too. Yeah. I think that's really at the end of the day what it comes down to for me is if you could lessen that burden on him. There are so many good returns with him. And like I said, his ability to like stock the ice. You were talking

earlier about going against the grain, right? And moving against the grain to find that space, kind of like steaking out of the frame and then coming back and stuff like that. Think about how much more you could get on a return if you had somebody else doing the work on the puck here and allowing him to do that away from the play and stock that open ice and be the guy who's kind of the threat in that sense. I think it's like a whole other potential aspect of a game that as a finisher that maybe we haven't seen yet. Because I think historically you look at his time in the league, there were a few years there where his finishing returns were really bad. you're kind of like, well, maybe this isn't what he is. And then you go into 21, 22, and it's like, boom, the roof blew off the place. And all of a sudden, you know, he became King Midas.

And it's kind of conceded into this year proving that it's not just a trend, right? And then there is a little bit in there, you know, as far as finishability is a lot more in there. I think that we thought. So, and, you know, to me, I think if you could just give him a little bit of that help on the entry side, take away some of that responsibility. You know, it doesn't just keep him fresh. It opens up possibilities for him to, you know, elaborate on that finishing. a little bit. Yeah, like I literally want to get eyeballs off of him, allow him to sort of more sneakily build up some of that speed. And by the time he gets the puck, he's already in

full flight as opposed to having a ramp up himself with the entire defense sort of keying in on him and watching every one of his strides. So I think that's like a really important distinction there. And I, you know, for him personally, it's also, you know, quite, quite a story in the sense that, you know, you go 2019, 20, they really organizationally hit that Nadeer where they have like a 45 point pace before the COVID stoppage, then the following year in the shortened season. He only plays 44 games and he has nine goals and 23 points, and you mentioned some of that finishing. It also ends with this like brutal injury where Jamie Ben cross checks him in the neck, basically off of a draw and ends his season. And since then, he's performed at a 33 goal, 80 point pace.

He gets rewarded with this mega eight year extension. And so the team success hasn't come there yet. But it seems like he has really sort of come into his own over these past two seasons. and I think, you know, that is an important piece of this story as well because it's cool to see him sort of revitalize himself in that way after a bit of a dip there. Yeah, and here's the good thing too, right? Like we've talked about like, and this is like the great intangible. You can never predict this stuff. And, you know, it's just, it is what it is.

But when you look back, you know, he's going to probably, he's played, he's on track to play more than 70 games again this year. But he's a guy who's going to give you like 71 plus pretty much every season, others than the one he got cross-checked in the neck. So, you know, you talk about availability per sweat that he gives you and abuse that he takes and the amount of muck, like we said earlier, that he has to go through to make plays. It's quite frankly amazing that he's in the lineup as much as he is. I mean, he's in the defensive zone blocking shots. He's in the defensive zone taking hits to make plays to get out of the defensive zone. Like you talk about like if Mike Roe was going to do a dirty jobs episode on hockey,

of it would be some of the stuff Dylan Larkin's doing. And to have the availability he's had in the face of all that, it's pretty impressive. Yeah. I'm really curious to see what the Red Wigs do next, right? They took a calculated step back at this year's deadline. They sold off a lot of their futures, including Bertuzi, who was a really nice fit for him as a linemate because he does have very sneaky sort of distribution ability and was able to hit him in stride sometimes. And so now they have roughly 30 million in Calf Base coming this summer. They have five picks in the top two rounds. And, you know, last year, I think we saw them make a bit of a mistake in terms of getting a little bit antsy and trying to get competitive maybe more quickly than they probably should have and spending a ton of money on sort of veterans to come in and round out the roster. And then Steve Eisenman comes out at the deadline this year and says, you know what, we look around.

And even in our old division, we feel like the senators and the sabres are a bit ahead of us in terms of their rebuild. And so we want to make sure we do this right. And so I'm kind of, I'm curious to see what happens this summer in terms of whether they get kind of like itchy. on the trigger finger again in terms of trying to get aggressive and get there eventually, or if they take a long review here and maybe, you know, more patiently weighted out and potentially draft some players up top with some of those picks that can come in in a couple years and fill that void in terms of some of the offensive skills that I think this roster is lacking right now. Yeah, I'm with you and it's that kind of space is not always good, right?

It's tough, yeah. It could be used really poorly and it could really throw the handcuffs on. on your rebuild and your ability to stay financially flexible if you go about it the wrong way. So now I'm 100%. This is a critical time for them. I mean, they've got this piece locked down. That's important, right? Like this is a really, really good sure thing to have in your lineup.

And like we talked about the utility of it. That's great. But, you know, you don't want to waste this, right? I mean, this is an important window. This is an important period of time. For as good as things can go after this, you could throw a real wrench into your plans here. Like you said, they've kind of already done that a little bit. There's going to be a bit of preciseness they're going to need to have here to pull this off correctly.

Okay. Here's a parting question for you, and I'm genuinely curious for your take on this. I know we just spent 45 minutes basically ranting and raving about what a special player, Dillon Larkin is, and he's the team's captain. They just committed, what, like nearly $70 million to him. In some future where the Red Wings finally get over the hump, get back to the promised land, either not necessarily win multiple Stanley Cups, but at least competing and legitimately in the mix there, is Dylan Larkin going to be the best forward on that team?

I'm going to say yes. Yeah. Well, here's why. Like, this, he's the kind of player that, like, you, I, here's what I would say. I think back, you know, you know me how he's going to give you, like, a Penguins example or something. I'm sorry about that. But I think back to the time that Phil Castle had, like, this unbelievable run in the Stanley

Cup playoffs and didn't win the cons. Right. Right. Like his his contributions in the goal column were undeniable. You could argue they won the cup because of what Phil Kessel did on the scoring side. But the completeness of what Sidney Crosby was doing, the completeness of it was so great that Phil Kessel could never get over that hump. And where I'm going with this, Demetri, is Detroit may have more talented forwards. Yeah. Right. More offensively talented eye-catching forwards, right? That do greater things in the goal scoring. department than Dylan Larkin does. It's going to be really difficult to take the whole of it and, and like go over top of what he's giving you. Like Marco Casper's unbelievable, right? Like, it's just guys, you've got hands for days and does crazy things, his work ethics out of this world. I mean, what I'm getting is it's so hard to take everything Larkin does and go over top of that. So that's my final answer. I don't know if it's a cop out, but,

But I just think that there's so much value to his game, and he's providing you so many benefits in so many different areas of the ice that it's tough to get over that. No, that's kind of what I was getting at. And I agree with that. Like, I think there might be a point where, I mean, they're certainly going to have to improve the support of Gast and sort of get more talent around him. But if they do get to that point, I could envision a scenario where he's, you know, he's sort of the nerds pick. And he's like the most useful player. And he kind of brings it all together. but they have other players who are maybe putting up more points or doing it in a more flashy way

and getting credit for that. But ultimately, when you try to kind of get to the root of their success, it'll always wind up leading back to Dylan Larkin and everything he does. So I don't think that's a cop-bought. I think that's the right way to look at it. And I think that that's also part of why the contract negotiation was so fascinating to be, and they ultimately wound up getting there. But trying to come up with what the number would look like and what would make sense for both parties,

I think that's something the Red Wings were probably balancing around internally as well, right? like how much are we comfortable getting to here with the number for the next eight years with that in mind that we're going to need to surround him with significantly more talent. And with the type of talent, that's probably going to be very pricey itself because players who put up big points wind up getting paid a lot. Yeah, yeah, 100%. No. And yeah, like I was just saying before, too, Demetri's, you can't handcuff yourself

and put yourself in a bind where, you know, you have great assets. and great talents, you know, that you can't appropriately surround with the type of players. And I just, I have to go back to the point that, like, this is the kind of player who's, any talent you give him, he's probably going to elevate, right? He's probably going to get a little bit more out of it. He wins so many puckes all over the ice that there's opportunity that gets created from Dylan Larkin in so many different facets of the game. That if you find that right mix, man, like, you know, it doesn't, you don't, you don't, I feel like

it's one of those situations where you want to give him the best talent, unquestionably, but you're not going to have to bend over backwards and completely break the bank to do it because he can, again, I keep using that term malleable. He can just play in so many different ways and with so many different types of talent that it doesn't have to be like this A plus home run, you know, high salary guys that you stick with him. Yeah, I think he could do really well with, um, you know, a little less than that. So you don't have to completely handcuff yourself

in providing him with help as where I'm getting at. And when you look down the line here, as far as like what Detroit's got in the pipeline, most of it, most of the good stuff, you know, at least at the top half, a lot of it's defensive. You know, a lot of really unbelievable defensive prospects, but they're lacking a little bit on the wing. Yeah. Okay, Jesse. Well, that was a blast. I really enjoyed that. Another W for the film club, no doubt. I will let you on the way out here, let the listeners, where they can check out your larkin piece and plug whatever you want uh let them know sure yeah yeah so the larkin piece is uh at mckeen tocky um i got a little um video analysis there and then

other stuff i have you could find that the athletic is a similar kind of study on mckell grandlin so if you're jones in if you're jones in for some nashville predators tape uh look no further than that piece well maybe you should have wrote that piece up before the trade and maybe the penguins got to check it out. Yeah, maybe. I spend a lot of time watching the ducks and the predators, though. I need a vacation. I could tell you much.

Yeah, I bet. All right, man. Well, this was a blast. My plugs are go give us a five-star rating for the listeners. If they enjoy this conversation, we're going to do another film club in a couple weeks. And I'm going to post some of these larkin clips on my YouTube channel. Just search up Hockupi-PedioCast if you want to get a sort of visual representation of what we were talking about to supplement, the great article that Jesse wrote

in McKeons. And we'll be back tomorrow with more. Until then, thank you for listening to the Ocupedia cast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network.