Red Wings' Larkin using world championship to elevate his game

HERNING, DENMARK -- At just 21 years old, Dylan Larkin is making his fourth appearance at the IIHF World Championship representing Team USA.
The Michigan native says each year he's learned something different.

Whether it was a better understanding of how to take care of his body, or having good practice habits, or how to find another gear when the game demands it from you, he's been able to take something away from the experience to help make him a better hockey player.
After an underwhelming sophomore season in the NHL that saw his offensive production take a dip last year, Larkin arrived in Germany ready to redeem himself and prove that he was better than that and end his season on a high note to set him up for a good summer of training.
He earned 10 points in eight games last year as Team USA went undefeated in the preliminary round before losing to Team Finland in the quarterfinal.
"Last year, I took away the experience of playing hockey and making plays and skating at a really high level and I think I brought that back to Detroit and had a pretty good year," he said about the 16 goals and 47 assists he earned for 63 points in 82 games for the Red Wings this year. "I'm just trying to take it to the next level now and take another step further. I want to have a good tournament and end my season on a good note.
"And it's not about stats. I don't care if I score a goal the whole tournament, I just want to win," Larkin said before this year's world championship began on Friday in Denmark. "I want to come out of here with confidence going into the summer and feeling good about where my game's at and where it has the potential to go so I can work towards getting there this summer and have a real good season next year too. I want to keep getting better."
In USA's opening game against Canada, Larkin scored twice to help the red, white and blue come away with a 5-4 shootout win and two points in the Group B standings.
"I thought Dylan had a real good game," USA head coach Jeff Blashill said. "He's become a real player in the NHL, a guy that you can count on. Shift for shift he was out against [Connor] McDavid almost the entire night and he feeds off that. He's the kind of guy that wants that competition and I read some comments where Dylan said he wanted to continue to build his game and be more of a big winner and make critical plays at critical moments and I think he did a good job of that tonight."
For the first goal, Larkin redirected the puck in the crease past Darcy Kuemper (Arizona), while the second goal had him streaking down the wing before roofing a shot from the low slot to give USA a 4-3 advantage early in the third.
"The first one (Chris Kreider) was in front and I just tipped it and got rewarded for going to the net," he explained. "For the second one, Cam (Atkinson) did a good job getting it up to (Kreider) and we used our speed as a line to beat them up the ice. I saw Kuemper was taken aback by the speed and the far side was open. So, I went for it and luckily it went in.
"I told you [before], I didn't care if I scored a goal the whole tournament, I just wanted to win, but it was definitely nice to get those two and the most important thing is that we won," he continued. "We would have liked to get the three points instead of just two, but we'll take it and now we have to keep it rolling."
Team USA did just that on Saturday night at Jyske Bank Boxen in Herning, Denmark as they shut out this year's tournament hosts 4-0.
Last year, Larkin was pretty vocal among the community of American hockey players, encouraging them to participate in the event, but this year things were a little different with Patrick Kane being announced as captain early on in the selection process as well as the abundance of players wanting to honor Jim Johannson, USA Hockey's assistant executive director who passed away suddenly in late January.
"The opportunity (to play with Kane) sells itself, but I've learned that everyone's in a different situation and you can't force someone to come," Larkin said. "If their heart's not in it, they shouldn't come because there are going to be players whose hearts are in it and, in my experience, those are the guys we want on the team.
"We need the guys who want to be here because we want to win this thing," he continued. "With the passing of JJ, I know how much this would mean to him and how proud he'd be that we're all here and we're really gonna try to do this thing and hopefully honor him with a gold medal, but even if we don't get there, I know he'd still be proud."
USA will face Germany next on Monday at 10 a.m ET on NHL Network.