DetroitRedWings.com’s Dana Wakiji spoke with Brandon Naurato regarding his addition to the Red Wings’ player development staff:
One player who is already good but wants to be even better is Dylan Larkin, who worked with Naurato earlier this summer.
“Working on goal scoring, getting stronger,” Larkin said during the lunch break at the Larkin Hockey School on July 12. “I think my biggest thing is conditioning. I always try and run a lot and make sure I’m in great shape coming into camp. But I’ve been working with Brandon Naurato with a couple other pro guys about goal scoring and on my one-timer as well.”
Naurato said he’s also been working with Larkin on some different power-play options, depending on Larkin’s power-play role this coming season.
“With Dylan, he’s obviously an elite player and has great, I always call it tools in the toolbox,” Naurato said. “So with guys like that, it’s almost just giving them the visual of here’s some things that you do well. NHL players really don’t have glaring weaknesses or things that they’re doing poorly. But there’s some minor adjustments that they can make and you show those trends through the video to where it may make their lives easier or just make them more efficient.
“A random example that has nothing to do with Dylan would be if I show all the guy’s shot attempts in a 10-game segment, he’s going to see exactly where he’s getting his shots from, which shots are getting blocked, which shots are hitting the net and how he’s scoring his goals. If you find a trend that he’s getting shots blocked in a specific area, well then you just dive deeper and say why and is there some type of skill that I can help him acquire to start being more efficient and getting those shots through.”
