The Detroit Red Wings are looking to see their captain, Dylan Larkin, maintain his performance after an outstanding year during his contract year. The team finally locked him up on his eight-year, $69.6 million contract to keep him captaining this team.
The Detroit Red Wings got their guy, and Larkin got his bag of money. There’s plenty to be excited about from this contract, especially after the year that he did put up for Detroit in 2022-23. They should be thrilled with how this year went and how things will go moving forward.
The Red Wings are trying to turn the corner on their rebuild and enter the era of competition. Their odds to accomplish this are good, but one of the things that could help this is another strong season out of Larkin.
He got his payday after posting career-best numbers in 2022-23. So, the question is if he can continue to do this once again, or the magic of it being a contract year might lead to him stagnating a bit in terms of production.
Detroit Red Wings need to hope for stability from Dylan Larkin.
Larkin played in 80 games in 2022-23, missing just two games overall, which helped him manage to pot 32 goals which tied his career-high, and he paired that with 47 assists for a career-high of 79 total points. It indeed was an exceptional performance from the team’s captain.
Larkin was well-deserving of his contract, even before the surge of offense, but that just made it all the more worth it. Now, the Red Wings will hope that Larkin can try to stabilize some offense and hang out more in that 70+ point range consistently moving forward.
With a better supporting cast around him in years to come, I like his odds. Larkin has played for some pretty darn bad Red Wings teams, so getting some players around him recently that have helped turn things around has made Larkin’s offense pop a little bit.
Now the Red Wings need Larkin to keep the offense flowing and find that consistency as the Red Wings look to start competing and be a threat in the Atlantic Division. As the team continues to align their plans for 2023-24, they have to be hoping that Larkin can look more like the 1A center that he was last season.
Over the years, he’s gotten some criticism about being more of a 1B type of center or a second-line option, including from myself. But his performance last year was that of a top-line guy and was pretty great to see.
Hopefully, the captain can continue to return to the well of offense moving forward.