As the Free Press’s Helene St. James notes, Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin is optimistic as to whether his team might make the post-season cut 82 games from now:
“Our record right now is zero, zero and zero,” Dylan Larkin said. “We have to show up and play together, be committed, which are all things we’ve been talking about with Newsy’s opening meeting.”
Yzerman said earlier this week that “playoffs or bust” does not apply, but to players like Larkin, who hasn’t experienced playing past the regular season since the Wings last advanced in 2016, it’s not too early to talk about the possibility.
“Going into this season, I know Steve and Newsy have not really set an expectation,” Larkin said. “The guys in the room, we talked about it last year — we want more. There’s a good attitude. There’s guys that have come in that have been on teams that have been locks for the playoffs. There’s veteran players, guys going into contract years. I like the dynamic of everyone on our team and we’re going to rely on each other to keep pushing and get off to a great start and remain consistent.”
Lines are likely to change from day to day, but Larkin started camp on a line with Lucas Raymond and newcomer Alex DeBrincat. J.T. Compher and Daniel Sprong, also new to the team, were on a line with Robby Fabbri. With Copp potentially on a line with Michael Rasmussen and David Perron, the Wings project to have three lines that can score.
“I think it’s great to have that competition,” Larkin said. “You saw it last year with DP coming in and he’s an offensive guy. And now Alex and J.T., Daniel Sprong is another guy that had a really good year last year. So it’s just going to keep pushing us. We need to score more goals and we know that and we have a group that I believe can do it.”
