Is something wrong with Dylan Larkin?

[Birko19]

he never did strike me as a first tier player. He's more of a solid guy not a star kinda player.

Tough to score goals in this league.

That's funny, because he has no problem scoring goals in this league, outside of Pastrnak and Draisaitl, he has outscored all the other notables from his draft year this this season such as Nylander, Ehlers, Reinhart, Bennet, Fabbri, etc.

It's the lack of assists that put him behind. But the more I'm watching him the more I'm understanding that he could have easily racked up those too if his linemates have been better. It seems like I see him out there with the likes of Sheahan and Glendening quite a bit, hard to rack up assist s with guys like that.

 

[Pavels Dog]

You can't be serious. Mantha is like exhibit A for Detroit prospects being overhyped. He was compared to Mario Lemieux on here. Probably the only player other than Laine to draw that analogy.

Last year Wings fans wouldn't shut up about Larkin's +/-. We told them it was unsustainable, that his absurd 109 PDO would regress to something more reasonable, but they just refused to believe this, and went into full advanced stats denial mode. As always, at the end of the day, advanced stats when applied correctly wins.

Karma stings, doesn't it?

Receipts please. Mantha deserved the hype, a slow adjustment to the pros doesn't change that, but comparisons to Lemieux? If you apply the odd nutjob post to what an entire fanbase thinks or how an entire organization's prospects are hyped then every team has 10-20 superstars coming up. Mantha got a lot of hype in draft+1 year, after that Wings fans have had to defend him against all the people labeling him a bust at age 20 and he's gotten zero attention around the league for what he's currently doing in the NHL.
Some people made too much of Larkin's +/- but the kid is also basically a 30 year exception for the Wings, no surprise Wings fans get excited when they have a 19 year old making that kind of impact for the first time since the 80s. He's not indicative of what kind of hype the average Wings prospects gets. A lot of them probably fly a little too much under the radar judging by how many "where did this guy come from??" posts you see about young players on the Wings.

All in all, it's funny arguing with a Leafs fan that Wings prospects are the ones getting overhyped. If only half the things I've read about Leafs prospects over the last couple of years come true Toronto will win 5-10 Cups in the next 10 years.

 

[nbwingsfan]

You can't be serious. Mantha is like exhibit A for Detroit prospects being overhyped. He was compared to Mario Lemieux on here. Probably the only player other than Laine to draw that analogy.

Last year Wings fans wouldn't shut up about Larkin's +/-. We told them it was unsustainable, that his absurd 109 PDO would regress to something more reasonable, but they just refused to believe this, and went into full advanced stats denial mode. As always, at the end of the day, advanced stats when applied correctly wins.

Karma stings, doesn't it?

What Karma, exactly? He's leading our team in goals..

 

[Frk It]

You can't be serious. Mantha is like exhibit A for Detroit prospects being overhyped. He was compared to Mario Lemieux on here. Probably the only player other than Laine to draw that analogy.

Last year Wings fans wouldn't shut up about Larkin's +/-. We told them it was unsustainable, that his absurd 109 PDO would regress to something more reasonable, but they just refused to believe this, and went into full advanced stats denial mode. As always, at the end of the day, advanced stats when applied correctly wins.

Karma stings, doesn't it?

The list of 50 goal scorers in their draft year put him in pretty legitimately good company. So that hype was understandable and justifiable.

When he had an underwhelming transition to the AHL we were hardly overhyping him at all on the main board, despite the fact that the kid has all the tools in the world.

Now he is in the NHL and looks fantastic. His skating has improved a lot, he has a great passer, he has really good hockey IQ.

 

[newfy]

You can't be serious. Mantha is like exhibit A for Detroit prospects being overhyped. He was compared to Mario Lemieux on here. Probably the only player other than Laine to draw that analogy.

Last year Wings fans wouldn't shut up about Larkin's +/-. We told them it was unsustainable, that his absurd 109 PDO would regress to something more reasonable, but they just refused to believe this, and went into full advanced stats denial mode. As always, at the end of the day, advanced stats when applied correctly wins.

Karma stings, doesn't it?

What karma lol?

I would love to see any posts of someone legitimately comparing Mantha to Mario, that sounds like a load of bs to me. Mantha has always been a slow developer in any league hes played in, he dominated the AHL playoffs last year and was leading the AHL in goals before getting a call up. Now in his first real NHL time he looks really good. Hes going to be a really good player for a long time.

As for Larkin hes leading the wings in goals at the age of 20 and looking extremely dangerous out there. I dont think youll find any wings fans complain about either of these guys.. even the biggest wings fans that wanted to trade Mantha and were calling him a bust are admitting they were wrong.

So what exactly is the karma? 2 really good prospects are turning into 2 really good players for the wings...

 

[Claypool]

Don't fall for Semantics traps!

 

[The Red Line]

Lmao at leafs fans talking about another fan base overhyping young talent.

 

[Aceboogie]

I dont think Wings fans overrate their own prospects that much. I think the rest of the league does it for them. The Wings became this model for drafting and developing because of Datsyuk/Zetterberg/Helm/Franzen successes from early 2000s. So any time Detriot drafted a skilled forward who did good in AHL for years player just assumed he was this NHL player stuck in AHL because its Detroits rule. They were instantly thought of as future top 6 players

Nyquist/Tartar/Jarnkok/Pulkkinen/Jurco/Frk are all some examples. And then if they did have some early success in the NHL, people just assumed they were next big thing because thats what happened with Datsyuk etc. But Nyquist and Tartar really just turned out to be averge middle line players and the others did turn out to be much at all.

Then you had Larkin who stormed out of gate and broke the Wings development "rule" and people thought he was going to be in top 10 of scoring from 19 on. Unreasonable expectations

But again, it was mostly other fans- not RW fans that thought these things

 

[DeYarmond Edison]

Leafs fans telling another fanbase that they over hype prospects?

 

[NotYou]

Few things to consider:

- In the past 15 years the Wings drafted in the 1st round 7 times.

- None of the 7 times they drafted has been in the top-10, the highest they've drafted was 15th overall followed by 19th twice and 20th.

- Most of their high 1st rounders have been from recent drafts where the players are still young to make any actual full judgment on, Larkin is 20, Mantha is 22, and Svechnikov is 19.

- A lot of the players your mentioned are gems when you consider their draft positions. Like it or not but Franzen, Filppula, Hudler, Nyquist, and Tatar are all legitimate top-6 players. Mrazek and Howard are legitimate starting goalies. While players like Helm and Abdelkader are significant bottom 6 guys.

- In the past 15 years the Wings have not missed the playoffs and were a competitive team for more than half of that time winning the cup twice, so missing all these high draft picks did not go to waste.

Now that I said all of this, your homework is to go find me another team that had similar draft pick positions and amount of 1st rounders in the past 15 years that actually did better than the Wings, I'll be shocked if you can find more than 2 or 3 teams and even with those, the Wings did better overall.

This doesn't address his point though. Re read the first paragraph, "stop polishing them as the next "hidden gem" that detroit managed to find. " he's not saying draft position isn't a factor, just that they haven't found a datsuyk or Zetterberg in a long time. They and 28 other teams failed to take Jamie, benn for example. Doing that is the only way to continue a dynasty in a cap world.