Larkin's busy summer continues with Wings youth camp

DETROIT -- It has already been an eventful summer for Red Wings center Dylan Larkin and he's not even close to done yet.
Larkin won a bronze medal with Team USA in the IIHF men's world championship in Denmark, ran his Larkin Hockey school with his brother and cousins, played in the Eastside Elite Hockey League, coached at the Dan Cleary Hockey School in Newfoundland and on Thursday helped out at the Wings youth camp at the BELFOR Training Center at Detroit's Little Caesars Arena.

That is all in addition to doing his own training and skills development on and off the ice.
The one thing that hasn't happened for Larkin yet is signing a new contract, but he expects that to occur in the near future.
"Obviously it's getting to August so a lot of talking and negotiating," Larkin said. "I think it's a bit of a process, the back and forth and thinking and everything. It's definitely a process. You can't sit by your phone all summer, you got to still train and work out and have fun, go on trips and stuff like that. It's a process, learning the business side of it. I feel pretty confident that something will get done before training camp. No worries about it."
There has been talk of a five or six-year deal in the works for Larkin, which would keep him a Wing until he is 27-28 years old.
"It is an honor," Larkin said. "That doesn't go around very often. It's something that you can't hang your hat on, you got to continue to work hard and want more for yourself, more for the team and the city, the organization. I'm still not really sure where it's going to end up but if they're willing to give a commitment like that, it's going to be a pretty good honor."
Larkin has added another thing to his already full plate and that is the Stars & Stripes Showdown, a charity game to played at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 26 at USA Hockey Arena in Plymouth.

The event, which was announced Thursday and has been spearheaded by Larkin, is to honor the late Jim Johannson and proceeds will benefit the Jim Johannson Legacy Fund of the USA Hockey Foundation and the Ellie Johannson College Fund.
"It is special. The idea started at worlds, right at the end," Larkin said. "Jim Johannson's brother, John, was there. We were talking with Pat Kelleher, the executive director of USA Hockey, and how great of an idea it would be. We had a lot of steam behind the idea, everyone was rallying around JJ at the world championships and I saw that and I thought it would be a great idea. I know it was released today. It's going to be a special night, a lot of superstars coming into town -- Auston Matthews, Charlie McAvoy, Jimmy Howard's going to play. We're still working on other guys. It's going to be a star-studded lineup so it's pretty cool they're all coming in to honor him and raise money for a great cause."
Larkin said he sat down with Kelleher and Scott Monaghan of the U.S. National Team Development Program in June and came up with the idea.
"Now it's going to be an awesome event," Larkin said. "I'm not taking all the credit but I definitely have had to get on the phone, my job has been to recruit players, which is ironic. I feel like JJ himself when he's calling guys for the world championships and calling everyone. You get every answer and you got to understand that it's summer and people have families going to school at that time, or guys have things going on. It's been interesting, talking to different guys but mostly great feedback from that."
In addition to the players already mentioned, some of the others confirmed are Detroit's Danny DeKeyser and Luke Glendening, Columbus' Zach Werenski, Minnesota's Ryan Suter and Zach Parise, Winnipeg's Connor Hellebuyck, Calgary's Matthew Tkachuk and Noah Hanifin.
Coaches for the game will be Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill, Wisconsin coach Tony Granato, New Jersey Devils coach John Hynes and New York Rangers coach David Quinn.
Larkin said there's a reason that Johannson meant so much to everyone associated with USA Hockey.
"He was a special guy," Larkin said. "Just his patience with everyone. I didn't realize how much he did for USA Hockey in terms of every national team from men's, women's, sled hockey. His hands were in every national team, picking the teams. He knew all the players - women's, men's, sled. He knew them personally. He knew their families. The world championships. I remember my first year and my parents came and I was still a college player. Just seeing what he did for them, transportation from the hotel to the rink, tickets and flights and everything. Just special how generous he was to everyone. He treated everyone the same whether you were a player or a younger brother to a player. It was special what he did for USA Hockey."
It was a special day for the youth campers, who may not have known that Larkin was going to be there, unlike at the Larkin Hockey School.

"I think the kids are going to be fired up," Larkin said. "It'll be awesome just to skate around. I won't have to run it as much as I do with mine, running drills and being a coach. I'll just be able to hang out with them and skate around and try and talk to them a little bit. It'll be a fun day."
Larkin just returned from the Dan Cleary Hockey School and his own camp was last month.

"I was saying to (Wings goaltending coach) Jeff Salajko, who's running (this), it is my third hockey school," Larkin said. "I've been on a hockey school tour this summer. But it is fun, the kids, they really enjoy it. It's something that I never did hockey school or hockey camps growing up but if I got the chance to skate with an NHL player, I think it would be one of the highlights of the summer."
Larkin is aware the summer is drawing to a close and training camp starts next month.
He is hoping to become even more of an impact player for the Wings in his fourth NHL season.
"I think we were the kids, but now there's even younger kids coming in," Larkin said. "So myself, Double-A (Andreas Athanasiou), Mo (Anthony Mantha), Tyler (Bertuzzi), it's going to be competitive from within but we do need to grasp that bigger role of being a leader, doing the right things, setting the example of hard work, right from day one in training camp in practice. We need to win games, we need to have that winning culture that the veterans have taught us and win games here. I think the fans want it, we want it. The young kids, they want to come in and make an impact right away. "If there's opportunity there and for myself, I need to build on last year and improve, for myself and for the team and be a big-time player where the game's one minute left, we're up by a goal or we're down by a goal, taking a big face-off to win it back and score the big goal or score the empty-netter, something just to win games."