Red Wings forward Dylan Larkin spoke with 97.1 the Ticket’s Stoney and Jansen with Heather show on Tuesday morning (here’s hoping that the embed works as there’s no MP3 yet)…
And Larkin praised teammate Filip Zadina, as noted by 97.1 the Ticket’s Will Burchfield:
“He looks great,” Larkin told the Stoney & Jansen Show Tuesday, with the Red Wings set to open play on Thursday. “He looks confident, which he always has, but the one thing I’ve noticed more is just his puck pursuit. When he doesn’t have it, he’s all over it.”
This is a habit that’s been missing from Zadina’s game. He’s been prone to drifting without the puck through his first two stints in Detroit. He was better in this regard last year and this year he looks better still. It helps that he spent most of the fall playing in the top professional league in the Czech Republic.
In the Red Wings’ final intrasquad scrimmage of training camp last Sunday, Larkin said Zadina “stripped guys four or five times where I was like, ‘Wow, that was a heck of a play.’”
In the past, Jeff Blashill has called for Zadina to be more involved on a shift-to-shift basis. More of a difference-maker up and down the ice. Blashill saw what he’s been looking for when he watched the former sixth overall pick during his loan to HC Ocelari Trinec. With a new hunger for the puck, Zadina put up eight goals and 14 points in 17 games for the top team in the league.
“His puck battles were real good and it’s carried forward,” Blashill said Sunday. “I think he’s learned how important it is to be a guy who goes and gets the puck himself and not wait for other guys to do that. If you win pucks, you get the puck more and you get to play way more offense.”
