The fresh faces will draw the most eyes, one in each link of the Red Wings' lineup: Lucas Raymond, Mortiz Seider and Alex Nedeljkovic. The future is theirs for the taking. But as Detroit enters another season of a grueling rebuild, the most familiar face looms larger than ever.
"I would love to have a bounce-back year," said Dylan Larkin.
You can view last year for Larkin any way you like. The simplest assessment is the truth: it wasn't good enough. Larkin crashed offensively and created more questions than he answered in Detroit's search for a No. 1 center. The search was all but over when last season began. It resumes in earnest Thursday night.
"Certainly for Dylan, there’s lots on his shoulders as a young captain of a team that’s going through a rebuild," Jeff Blashill said Thursday morning. "We’ve faced a number of hard times and that’s not easy. But he’s an extraordinary young person -- or really at this point, an extraordinary guy who’s been in the league now for seven years."
Seven years -- it's hard to fathom. Larkin just turned 25. Then you remember the faces who were here when his was fresh -- Pavel Datsyuk and Johan Franzen, for two -- and seven years feels right. Back then, Larkin was the whirling winger under the wing of a franchise great. He scored goals, Henrik Zetterberg took care of the rest. Now the rest belongs to Larkin. He's the shepherd for Raymond, the center who counters the opposition's best, the player who leads his team onto the ice.
"He has to go out and win a ton of puck battles, he has to be dynamic with his skating and he has to be responsible defensively," said Blashill.
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Steve Yzerman and Blashill want Larkin to be a two-way player. That's what makes a No. 1 center. Zetterberg was living proof. He could be counted on defensively every night. He basically roomed with Sidney Crosby he checked him so tightly in back-to-back Cup finals. And even in the worst offensive season of his career, Zetterberg, at age 35, produced 0.60 points per game. He was a point-per-game player in his 10-year prime. Last year, Larkin produced 0.52 points per game. The simplest assessment is the truth.
But context matters. Zetterberg spent his prime surrounded by a cast of All-Stars. His stats appreciated it. Larkin spent most of last season without the All-Star who plays on his wing, who hounds pucks and creates space, who had a hand in more than half of Larkin's points the season prior. This season, Tyler Bertuzzi is back. And Blashill plans to play the two together here, there and everywhere but Canada.
"With the return of a guy like Tyler Bertuzzi who’s a real important linemate for him, I think the offense will come," Blashill said. "But I’m not worried about offense as much as I am winning hockey, and I think he’s someone that certainly sees it the same way. He wants to win more than anything else, and I know we’ll get great leadership and great effort from him."
While we're sorting through context, there's also this: Larkin was flat-out unlucky last season. His 6.7 shooting percentage was the ninth lowest in the NHL among forwards who put at least 100 pucks on net, and far below his career mark of 9.4 percent through his first five seasons. It doesn't excuse Larkin's plunge in production -- put the biscuit in the basket, right? But it does help explain how he scored just nine goals, and one power play goal, in 43 games.
Health willing, Larkin has 82 games ahead of him. He's fully recovered from the neck injury that cost him the final two weeks of last season. In his quest for a bounce-back year, he said he'll measure his progress through stats like face-off percentage -- where he fell below 50 percent last year -- "quality shots on net and battles won." These are the little things that mean a lot to Yzerman and Blashill.
"It won’t always result in goals and assists and points," Larkin said. "But as long as the team’s winning and I’m contributing and not being a liability defensively, that’s a huge thing for me."
It's year seven for Larkin, and year five of the rebuild. New faces brighten the future. And then there's the flickering light, the No. 1 center who went missing last season. Is he here or gone? Everything glows if the Red Wings find him.
"He’s got great inner drive, he's great respect from his teammates. Now what does he have to do?" asked Blashill. "He has to play Dylan Larkin hockey."