Dylan Larkin Overtime Winners Are Sweeter Than Ever Before

My favorite goal that I've ever seen live: Jan. 4, 2019, the woeful Detroit Red Wings hosting a really good Nashville Predators squad. The Wings went into it having lost 10 of their last 11, and they started the game by surrendering the first two goals. But from 0-2 down, they put together an unexpected comeback, first with a speedster highlight from Andreas Athanasiou, then scores from Thomas Vanek and Tyler Bertuzzi. The Preds tied the game up late in the third, forcing overtime, and just when it looked like we were headed for a shootout, the team's beloved leader—though not yet captain—settled things himself. Dylan Larkin deked out one Nashvillain at the top of the offensive zone, curved away from another, and then flipped a backhander past a couple more bodies and into the net. I think of this goal often to remind myself that, no matter how a season's gone in the weeks or months before, it's always worth going to a rink and screaming for the home team. Every game has the potential to make you very, very glad you went.

Now an 11-year vet, the 29-year-old Larkin has only become more enmeshed in the hearts of Red Wings fans, even as the franchise itself has stayed stuck in neutral. In 2015–16, he led the Wings in scoring as a rookie before they stalled out in a five-game first-round series against the Lightning. Since then, every other player on the roster has moved on, and the Red Wings haven't made a single playoff appearance.