Through his first four seasons, Dylan Larkin has had a lot of success. But how does he compare to some of the other Detroit Red Wings greatest players?
When you’re the follow-up act to Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk, you better be great. The expectations that Dylan Larkin has had to face hasn’t been high since Zetterberg was on the Detroit Red Wings until last year.
In his first year without him, Larkin has shown that he can produce and be a leader to a young rebuilding team that needs a player to become a star. But can he be that star? Can Larkin carry the Red Wings?
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So far, he has had one really good season. This was last season, where he had 32 goals and 41 assists for 73 points. Larkin also averaged a career-high in TOI with 22 minutes of ice time per game and played a total of 1660, 33 minutes more than in 2017-18.
Since his sophomore season, his numbers have improved. With a total of 213 points in 318 games, Larkin has been productive. It’s worth noting he has only missed a few games through his four seasons in the league. But how do his first four seasons compare to some of the greatest Red Wings players of all-time? Let’s take a look.
Dylan Larkin
| Age | Season | Games | Goals | Assists | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 | 2015-16 | 80 | 23 | 22 | 45 |
| 20 | 2016-17 | 80 | 17 | 15 | 32 |
| 21 | 2017-18 | 82 | 16 | 47 | 63 |
| 22 | 2018-19 | 76 | 32 | 41 | 73 |
| TOTALS | 318 | 88 | 125 | 213 |
*Made playoffs once during his rookie season. 2015/16: 5 GP- 1 G- 0 A- 1 P
Larkin’s career so far has seen him miss the playoffs in every season except for his rookie season. So while he has been on a rebuilder early in his career, it is interesting to compare him to three other Red Wing greats through their first four seasons in the NHL.
Henrik Zetterberg
After spending 3 seasons for Timra IK in the SHL, Zetterberg joined a Red Wings roster that had eight future Hall of Famers. Averaging 16 minutes of TOI, he finished second in the Calder Trophy voting. Zetterberg finished his rookie season with 44 points.
Now, the biggest difference between Zetterberg and Larkin is the fact that when Larkin joined the league the Wings had been on the downswing. Meanwhile, when Zetterberg joined, they were ready to compete for years to come. He also started playing in the league three years after getting drafted in 1999 while Larkin jumped in the lineup just one year out.
Zetterberg didn’t have a “huge” year until his 3rd when he scored 85 in the 2005/06 season after the lockout of 05′. He also was injured the following year, only playing 63 games while accumulating 68 points to round out his first 4 seasons.
One thing I would point out is while Zetterberg did play in the “Dead Puck” era, Larkin did catch the very end of that. His first two years would mark the end of that era, making him the easiest comparable of the Red Wings greats. The biggest difference is that Larkin joined a rebuilder vs a contender.
Through Four Seasons
| Age | Season | Games | Goals | Assists | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 | 2002-03 | 79 | 22 | 22 | 44 |
| 23 | 2003-04 | 61 | 15 | 28 | 43 |
| 25 | 2005-06 | 77 | 39 | 46 | 85 |
| 26 | 2006-07 | 63 | 33 | 35 | 68 |
| TOTALS | 280 | 109 | 131 | 240 |
*Made Playoffs through his first 4 years reaching the Conference finals in 2006/07
Zetterberg could end up being a Hall of Famer when he is eligible and will definitely have his number 40 retired by the Red Wings. He made the playoffs all but his final two years of his career playing it all with the Red Wings. Zetterberg finished his career fifth on their all-time scoring list with 960 points and is 6th in games played with 1082. He retired just before the 2017-18 season.
Steve Yzerman
If you think being a Red Wings fan now sucks, imagine trading the future 6th all-time point-getter in NHL history for nothing because the team sucked and he didn’t want to play there. Yeah, that happened with Marcel Dionne.
There were fears that another young superstar might’ve done the same thing a couple of years later. This player was Steve Yzerman and he stayed for a while. While he wasn’t the sixth all-time scorer in NHL history, seventh is pretty good too.
Yzerman joined a Detroit squad that had only made the playoffs twice in the past 16 years heading into his rookie season in 1983 and being drafted 4th overall in the draft there was pressure on the young centerman.
With that in mind, all he did was drop 87 points and finish second in the Calder Trophy voting. While they made the playoffs in three of his first four seasons, it wouldn’t be for more than a decade later till the Red Wings would win their first of three Stanley Cups under Yzerman’s leadership.
Through Four Seasons
| Age | Season | Games | Goals | Assists | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 | 1983-84 | 80 | 39 | 48 | 87 |
| 19 | 1984-85 | 80 | 30 | 59 | 89 |
| 20 | 1985-86 | 51 | 14 | 28 | 42 |
| 21 | 1986-87 | 80 | 31 | 59 | 90 |
| TOTALS | 291 | 114 | 194 | 308 |
*Made playoffs 3 of 4 years, missing the year Yzerman only played 51 games. The Red Wings also made it to the conference finals in 1986/87 and 1987/88 losing to the Edmonton Oilers as everybody did in the 1980s
Yzerman is the Red Wings second-highest scoring player in history with 1755 only trailing the legendary, Gordie Howe. He is also 4th games played with 1514 and is the longest-serving captain in Red Wings history. Yzerman held it from the age of 21 until he retired at the age of 40. The Red Wings made the playoffs all but 2 of his 22 seasons.
Larkin has a long way to go to even sniff any of the things Yzerman accomplished, but he is a good comparison to how the Red Wings can come out of a rebuild and go on a long run of success.
Gordie Howe
Gordie Howe. Like a lot of hockey fans, I never got to see him play live. In the clips and photos I have seen of him, he was not only the toughest son of a gun out there, but he was also the best. Sitting first in games played in entire NHL, Howe’s professional hockey career spanned from the time he was 18, all the way to the age of 51. Howe was an extraordinary athlete and is, in my opinion, the best player to ever wear the Winged Wheel so far. Lidstrom is pretty close though.
When Howe joined the Red Wings in the 1946 season, they were one of the worst teams to make the playoffs and were in the middle of a period where you had players coming back from WW2 and were still leading teams in scoring. Strange times.
Through his first four seasons, he would become a key part of the most famous line in hockey, the production line, and would win his first Cup in the 1949/50 season after losing the 2 years previous in the finals to the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Through Four Seasons
| Age | Season | Games | Goals | Assists | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 | 1946-47 | 58 | 7 | 15 | 22 |
| 19 | 1947-48 | 60 | 16 | 28 | 44 |
| 20 | 1948-49 | 40 | 12 | 25 | 37 |
| 21 | 1949-50 | 70 | 35 | 33 | 68 |
| TOTALS | 228 | 70 | 101 | 171 |
*Made the playoffs all four years – was original six era- and made the Cup finals three of four seasons, winning in 1950.
Howe won four Stanley Cups during his career, all with the Red Wings, playing in 1,687 career games for them. He played for a very long time and is a legend in hockey, so comparing his illustrious career to Larkin’s is hard, and perhaps unfair, to do.
He won his first Stanley Cup in his fourth year while also making the finals his second and third years as well. Different eras and circumstances, I k andow, but that’s what made him one of the best in history helping lead those teams to those successes. Howe finished his career with 1,767 games played and is the fourth-highest point scorer in NHL history.
Where can Larkin go from here?
Playing on a team that has little to no scoring depth, Larkin has had to carry the load a lot of times by himself. The rise of players like Anthony Mantha and Tyler Bertuzzi, along the infusion of more talented players like Joe Veleno and Filip Zadina possibly joining the lineup, should help take some pressure off of Larkin.
I think the 2019-20 season could see Mantha breakout in goal scoring as well as he has had 24 and 25 goals the last two seasons. With better offensive players in the lineup leads me to believe this will be the season where Larkin could potentially break all of his career highs. While Detriot won’t be in the playoff race, they will be competitive in every game, and Larkin will be a big reason why.
Dylan Larkin is a fantastic player and by no means should he bare the comparisons of the greats that have played before him in Detroit. It is just interesting to see where others started compared to him. So don’t give up on Larkin being able to lead this Red Wings team back to the promised land. Remember it took Yzerman till he was 31 to win his first. He has a street named after him now.