NHL.com’s Nicholas J. Cotsonika posted a comprehensive discussion of the friendship between Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin and Columbus Blue Jackets star defenseman Zach Werenski.
The duo will temporarily put their friendship on hold as their respective teams play a critical home-and-home series starting tomorrow night, and culminating in Saturday’s Stadium Series:
When Zach Werenski gets married in Columbus in July, he’ll have one hockey guy standing in the wedding: Dylan Larkin. The best friends have played together many times — as kids, as college roommates, for their country — and skate together in the offseason.
But don’t think they won’t compete against each other. They’ve become pillars of their NHL teams — Werenski as the all-time leading scorer among defensemen for the Columbus Blue Jackets, Larkin as the captain and No. 1 center for the Detroit Red Wings — and they’ll go at it in two big games over the next three days.
The Red Wings hold the first wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Eastern Conference. The Blue Jackets hold the second wild card in the East, two points behind. Columbus visits Detroit at Little Caesars Arena on Thursday (7 p.m. ET; FDSNOH, FDSNDET), then Detroit visits Columbus in the 2025 Navy Federal Credit Union NHL Stadium Series at Ohio Stadium on Saturday (6 p.m. ET; ESPN, TVAS-D, FX-CA).
They’ll be like brothers on a backyard rink.
“A couple years ago, Dylan and Zach got into a little scrum where they were kind of throwing punches or fake punches,” said Joe Smaza, their youth coach. “You can’t take the competitive nature out of these guys. I was like, ‘What are you guys doing?’”
Smaza laughed. It’s true. Although they weren’t exactly throwing haymakers, Larkin and Werenski dropped the gloves and received fighting majors late in a 3-2 Columbus win at Little Caesars Arena on Jan. 18, 2021. They were just doing what hockey players do.
Continued at length–this is a good one, give it your time…
