Getting to Know: Darby Llewellyn

Darby Llewellyn makes an excellent first impression. With an impish smile and easy manner, he came into his second season in the Rangers dressing room with a more confident voice, and has been impressing on community visits.

And on the ice? Let’s just say he knows how to make an entrance.

The Ann Arbor, MI native started his sophomore year with a pair of goals in the home opener, including the game winner leading the Rangers to a 4-2 win over the Saginaw Spirit. Looking back, he can’t help but smile.  

“Having a game like that, it definitely won’t hurt your confidence at all!” laughs Darby. He’s happy to celebrate the big moments, but he’s also taking a measured approach to the ups and downs of OHL hockey.

“I try to make sure that I don’t get too high or get too low – that’s a huge thing for me.”

He might be making a confident first impression now, but it wasn’t always fast starts and impact plays. Llewellyn will be the first to tell you that his hockey career got off to a rough start 14 years ago, when he was running around brother Tristin’s hockey practice and a coach recommended to his mom that he give the sport a try. He laughs looking back at a tough start.

“I was awful. I was so upset because I thought I was going to go out on the ice and be good right away, like my brother,” he admits with a chuckle. Darby has a reputation for being tough on himself, a trait that started young.

“I was so mad that I didn’t want to go back out on the ice!”

But, of course, he did. Dad enrolled him in a Learn-to-Skate program in nearby Plymouth, minutes from the Whalers’ home rink, where Darby continued to chase his older brother, a defenceman who has since moved on to the Rapid City Rush of the Central Hockey League.

“I remember there were three groups: the red group, the best skating group that got to use pucks right away, the blue group and the yellow group. I was in the middle of the ice, in the yellow group, which was the group just learning to skate, because we were so bad!” he remembers. His self-deprecating humour aside, the winger has come a long way since then, and he knows it.

The key has been hard work and dedication to his sport. After scoring seven goals and six helpers in 40 games as a rookie, he made the choice to stay in Kitchener for the off-season, eschewing a summer back in Michigan to continue his work with Rangers’ strength and conditioning coach Brandon Merli. Darby was in the gym each day from 11am to 2:30pm to improve before his Rangers career resumed.

“If I had gone home, I definitely would have worked out, but it wouldn’t have been as effective as it was staying here and working out with Merls,” the fresh-faced forward argues.

“My endurance has never been my issue, it was about adding muscle. Anyone can put on weight, but it’s about putting the right amount and the right type of weight on that will help you.”

The impact on his game has been impressive. The bulk of his time in the gym was spent hitting the weights, in hopes of adding strength and rounding out his physical game. The time away from home, and his cherished pet dogs, wasn’t easy, but it was worth it. Combined with a season’s worth of experience, he says he feels better able to contribute.

“I feel stronger in the corners, offensively and defensively. And in a sense, I feel more aware too. I’m used to the speed that the game coming at and having a year under my belt now, I have a better feeling of the league and the teams and what they’re going to bring.”

With three points in his last three games, and a shootout tally that helped the Rangers shake off a skid last weekend in Ottawa, Llewellyn is finding his stride. His next mission?

“The goal is to follow up that home opening game! Personally, it’s playing as well as I can and never taking a shift off. Consistency is the biggest thing that will get you to the NHL, that will get you to the next level in your career and I think that I really need to show that I can be as consistent as I want to be.”

Eligible for the 2014 Entry Draft, he’s hoping the work he is putting in will open some doors for him. Hearing his name in Philadelphia this June would be nice, but Darby is thinking big.

“Ideally, I hope that I go high enough that I can be there, at the draft. A phone call would be great, but I’m hoping to get that jersey!”