Jean-Gabriel Pageau did something different this offseason: He removed himself from hockey.
Not for the whole offseason, mind you. Pageau did all the preparation needed for training camp, as always.
But after a season he’s acknowledged was disappointing, in which he scored just 11 goals and failed to make his usual two-way impact, Pageau made a point of taking a couple weeks away. He spent time with his family. He golfed. He deprived himself of hockey so he would want to go back to it.
“Maybe that’s the weight I needed, sometimes, to get off my shoulders,” Pageau said after Wednesday’s practice. “Spend summers here [on Long Island], practice and working out here in the summer and practice every day. It can be a lot. Just to go away, to go back home, to have that for a couple weeks, golf trips, spend time with my family — I think it was massive.”
