from Ansar Khan of Mlive,

Their leading scorer and best player emerged unscathed in a rare bout against the New York Islanders’ Josh Bailey, and Larkin gained even more respect in the room.

“It gets everybody fired up,” Luke Witkowski said. “Obviously, he’s one of our best players, so you don’t want to see that on a nightly basis because you don’t want him to get hurt. We need him on the ice as much as possible, but it gets us fired up.”...

Coach Jeff Blashill fully supports all his players, even the non-fighters, stepping up in similar fashion.

“I think opponents have to know that you’re going to stand up for yourself and your teammates,” Blashill said. “Early in (Larkin’s) career I thought a number of teams took runs at him to try to test his toughness. You don’t see that anymore because they know he’s tough. Not that he’s going to make a career out of fighting, nor do we want him to. But the fact that they know he’s got toughness means he’ll get enough space to create offense.

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