Why the Islanders’ Jean-Gabriel Pageau took a new approach to getting ready for the season

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 at home in Ottawa. 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.”