A goal-scoring winger, Victor Arvidsson thrived last season playing with Boston's highest-scoring center. Detroit's highest-scoring center has requested a trade.
Arvidsson signed with the Red Wings all the same.
Asked if he had to weigh Dylan Larkin's trade request and looming departure before signing a two-year, $10 million deal with Detroit, Arvidsson said, "No, I haven’t really put any thought into that or read too much about it. I was focused on myself and what I’m gonna bring to the team, and that’s about it."
Arvidsson is coming off one of the best seasons of his career. Playing consistently on a line with Casey Mittelstadt and Pavel Zacha, he scored 25 goals -- 18 of them at five-on-five -- in 69 games and finished third in the NHL in five-on-five points per 60 minutes, behind only Nikita Kucherov and Nathan MacKinnon.
Zacha was the Bruins' most productive center, finishing with 30 goals and 65 points. Larkin finished with 33 goals and 67 points. If he's indeed traded this summer, it remains to be seen who becomes 1C in Detroit.
None of this really matters to Arvidsson. For the 12-year vet, stability in his linemates is just as important (if not more) as the personnel. That's how he rebounded last season after a frustrating year with the Oilers. Arvidsson put up twice as many points with Boston despite playing the same amount of minutes in his lone season with Edmonton.
"I’ve always been good five-on-five and scored and created offense and defensively I’ve been good. I just felt like going from LA to Edmonton, I kind of got stuck in Edmonton a little bit with not playing consistently at five-on-five and playing with a lot of different people during games," Arvidsson said. "In Boston, I played with the same players, and you create that chemistry with certain players, and I think we meshed together last year really well. It was fun to play.
"I just think I compete so hard, I get chances and I like to be around the next and find loose pucks and stuff like that. That’s a big part of my game."
Arvidsson, 33, said his line with Zacha and Middlestadt got off to a slow start, "but I don’t like to just give up on guys or anything."
"You talk to the guys you play with and you try to create something and try to learn from each other, and I think we did that really well. I’m not going to change how I approach things this year, either," Arvidsson said. "I’m going to try to make the best out of the situation I get put into."
The situation in Detroit might be different for Arvidsson, who's never played on a team that missed the playoffs. His new team has missed the playoffs 10 years in a row, the longest active drought in the NHL. The Bruins were one of the teams that jumped the Red Wings in the Atlantic last season, from 76 points to 100.
The Red Wings finished with 92, seven points shy of the playoffs after another late-season collapse.
"They were really close this year, the division and wild card were so tight," Arvidsson said. "But great D corps, first of all, and a lot of speed and skill up front. I think you just need to mesh that together and maybe be more consistent, because that’s what this league is about: doing it night in and night out and don’t drop too much."
Arvidsson's goal for next season is the same as always, "to come together as a group and to win games."
"Every team is saying that when training camp starts, that they’re going to be one of the teams that makes the playoffs," he said. "It’s a tough league, first off, to make the playoffs, but second of all, to go all the way. But that’s my goal every year, to play meaningful hockey."
For Arvidsson, joining the Red Wings is also a reunion with Todd McLellan, his coach for three seasons with the Kings. Arvidsson scored at about a 26-goal pace in LA.
McLellan would happily take that in Detroit, from a player who will likely slot into the Wings' middle six.
"He’s really structured and always has a plan," Arvidsson said of McLellan. "It’s defense first, and if you play really good defense you’re going to have success offensively. That’s a big thing that I like about him. And he’s honest and really straight-up with all the players and everybody around the team. I like that, a little bit old school."
