Dave Lozo's Bag Skate: What It's Like to Go from NHL Star to the Supporting Cast

Life has a way of occasionally revealing our deficiencies to us as we age. That receding hairline; that strange feeling of exhaustion after climbing a flight of stairs; that propensity for feeling pain in a knee or your back when the weather worsens.

Coming to grips with the fact that we aren't 18 or 21 years old anymore is difficult for some, less difficult for others. It's never easy, that's for sure.

Diminishing abilities are especially obvious in hockey and exponentially more difficult with which to cope when you were a great player in your early 20s and your new reality is life on a fourth line after years of having a prominent role on a team.

Say hi to Brenden Morrow, Vinny Lecavalier and Mike Richards, three former first-round picks and NHL captains adjusting to a new life in the NHL with different degrees of success.

"Sometimes in your career," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said, "someone has to rip the Band-Aid off."

Demotion to a fourth line for a former star happens for a couple reasons, mainly because that player is older and isn't a star anymore or because that player's particular team is loaded at forward. That adjustment is 90 percent mental and 10 percent dealing with nine or 10 shifts per game after years of taking 20-plus shifts a night.

Michael Martin/Getty Images

It's an ego check, something that an elite athlete rarely faces in his or her life. "Me? On a fourth line? I'm a first-round pick. I was playing 20 minutes a night a year ago. I can still do it. I just need a chance."

Morrow found himself on the fourth line with the St. Louis Blues in 2013-14, something he described as a shock and the most difficult adjustment of his career. He said when he signed with coach Ken Hitchcock's club, the team said he should expect a third-line role with occasional power-play time; when there was none of that, Morrow, a player who routinely received 18 or 19 minutes a night for 12 seasons, had a difficult time handling that.

"When I went to St. Louis it was, 'You’ll get some power-play time,'" Morrow said. "Then I got there and it was fourth line and no power-play time. This year, I knew coming in, leadership, good in the locker room, good young group. Nothing was given to me. Nothing was guaranteed. I was more prepared for it.

"Last year was a lot harder. Coop communicates so well."

Morrow appears to be way more accepting of his role with the Lightning, and some of that is an acceptance with where he is in his career—he's a mentor and experienced voice in a locker room filled with mostly newbies. He said that it was easier to get himself prepared mentally for the season with the Lightning because his role as the fourth-line mentor was clearly explained to him in the summer.

And Morrow is well aware that he's on a Lightning team with virtually no holes in the top-nine forward group.

"It’s tough, mentally," Morrow said. "You go through a stage where you’re frustrated and feel like you’ve been in those positions before and you can get the job done still. But then you see how well these kids are playing and they’re getting the job done. So really, I’m fighting a battle against no one.

"It’s a lot of mind games. But last year was probably the biggest adjustment. This year, I came in and realized what my role was going to be, what was expected to me. Last year, maybe I was led to believe something more or I thought more would come."

The mental aspect—and perhaps his own limitations—took nearly two years for Morrow to embrace. 

Len Redkoles/Getty Images

The Morrow mindset is interesting when looking at Lecavalier, who seems to be getting baptized in fourth-line life with the Philadelphia Flyers this season.

Morrow is 35 years old; Lecavalier is 34, which is the age when Morrow was hit with his fourth-line reality. While Morrow was able to go through his painful evolution in relative silence on a quality Blues team last season, Lecavalier's frustration and transformation are happening very publicly with a poor Flyers club.

Signs of Lecavalier's decline began to creep into the picture at the end of last season, as coach Craig Berube relegated him to the fourth line during the Flyers' seven-game first-round playoff loss to the New York Rangers. 

It all came to a head in the past week, as Lecavalier played on the fourth line in back-to-back losses to the Rangers over the weekend and will be a healthy scratch for the first time in his career for Tuesday's game against the San Jose Sharks. Lecavalier had only nine shifts in his previous game, and Berube pulled no punches afterward.

"He needs to work harder, he needs to be a better player, he needs to play with more structure and he needs to dig in more," Berube said.

If Lecavalier didn't like playing fourth-line minutes, wait until sees how often the fifth line plays.

"I don't think that's what it is," Lecavalier said about his scratch being a result of a lack of effort to the Philadelphia Daily News. "I think everybody works hard. I've got to get back and play with more confidence. With confidence comes speed and everything else around it. It's definitely not effort."

Cooper on Morrow: "He’s one of those guys that guys really pull for, just because they know he gets the eight to nine minutes a night, but he gives you everything in those eight or nine minutes."

Lecavalier is also in a different place in terms of expectations entering the season: A man in the second season of a five-year, $22.5 million contract will always have a harder time accepting he's a fourth-line player who isn't working hard enough, but that's the new reality in his world. It's also probably harder to swallow considering the Flyers are a one-line team desperate for offense and Lecavalier can't consistently crack the second or third lines.

Juan Ocampo/Getty Images

Richards' situation with the Kings shares some traits with Lecavalier and Morrow; Richards is much younger, only 29 years old, but finds himself on the fourth line of a deep team while carrying a big contract (a $5.75 million cap hit for five more seasons according to Spotrac). And while Richards is technically a fourth-line center, his ice time isn't standard for a fourth-liner.

Richards is playing nearly 15 minutes per night this season, Morrow is at around 10 minutes per game and Lecavalier is down to 13 minutes per game.

For Richards, the 15 minutes represent about a two-minute decrease in ice time over last season but an increase over his usual ice time during the 2014 playoffs, when he played fewer than 15 minutes in a game 11 times.

Pierre LeBrun of ESPN.com spoke with Richards before the season about avoiding a potential contract buyout in the summer and his outlook on this season, and Richards expressed a desire to avoid a lesser role in 2014-15 after winning a Stanley Cup in 2014.

"I’m not happy being in that role, even though you’ll do whatever it takes to help the team win," Richards said. "But you feel you can do more to put yourself, prepare yourself, to be in a better situation. It was definitely a learning experience last year, maybe even a little bit of an eye-opener where you might take things for granted, or take having success for granted. We won, which is a good thing, but you feel like you can contribute to the team more and you don’t want to be put in that position again. And to be honest, I deserved to be put in that position last year."

Player	Goals	Points	Time on ice	Fenwick-close
Brenden Morrow	1	3	10:01	50.4
Vinny Lecavalier	2	6	13:27	30.8
Mike Richards	4	10	14:51	47.7

The offseason work by Richards hasn't done much to change his production, however. After 11 goals and 41 points in 82 games last season, Richards is on pace for 14 goals and 35 points this season.

Morrow has just one goal and three points this season but has been a decent enough possession player. His Fenwick is 51.7 percent, which isn't great on a dominant possession team, but it's pretty good considering he starts just 22.7 percent of his shifts in the offensive zone according to Stats.HockeyAnalysis.com. Of the 475 players to play at least 200 five-on-five minutes this season, only 20 have started fewer shifts in the attacking end.

It's a low bar for judging a player, sure, but everyone needs to adjust expectations for fourth-line players.

"Last year and this year have been different than the last 15 years or so," Morrow said. "It’s been a bit of an adjustment, but this team here is playing really well, and the fourth line is a good energy line. Statistically, goals and assists aren’t where you’d like them. You feel like you can contribute more. But we all feel pretty comfortable with the way things are going.

"My mindset is I want to win a Cup, and this is a good opportunity here. But I want to prepare and work hard in case some injury were to happen—knock on wood, you never want to see that happen—but everybody wants to play more minutes or be put in a bigger role. I still feel like I can do it if called upon, so I want to be prepared."

"He just brings so much to us that it’s hard to keep him out of the lineup," Cooper said. "For me, as a coach, I can’t have enough of those guys around. He’s awesome."

Stephen Dunn/Getty Images

Quote of the Week: Jon Cooper vs. Darryl Sutter

Lightning coach Jon Cooper and Kings coach Darryl Sutter are the two most quotable coaches in the NHL. Each week, we will let you decide who had the best quote.

We may as well slide from Cooper quotes to another Cooper quote. This struck me as funny when he was talking Monday at Madison Square Garden.

Coaches tend to speak to the media after locker room availability, but with former Rangers Ryan Callahan, Brian Boyle and Anton Stralman visiting, it ran long and put a crunch on Cooper's time. When the media surrounded Cooper, he opened his press conference by saying: "Our bus leaves in five minutes and it takes 4 minutes, 30 seconds to walk to the bus, so..." and he pretended to walk away.

Then he stood there and spoke for nearly 10 minutes. I hope he didn't miss his bus.

What's the latest nugget from Darryl Sutter? As always, we turn to Sutter documentarian Jon Rosen of L.A. Kings Insider for the gold.

Marian Gaborik is injured, and injured players usually skate before practices. Media members, myself included, tend to arrive for the start of practice and not a second earlier, so we sometimes miss that stuff. So Sutter was asked if Gaborik had skated on his own before a recent practice.

"If you were here, then you would know if he skated. I don’t have to talk about guys."

Sutter really is a loving and caring man. I swear. People have told me.

Dave Reginek/Getty Images

KHL Thing of the Week

There is some quality hockey that is played overseas that we rarely hear about in North America. This section will highlight that or something else from our friends playing hockey in the KHL.

Former King/Devil/Hurricane forward Andrei Loktionov signed a deal with Lokomotiv Yaroslavl last week, according to Luke Fox of Sportsnet.ca. The unrestricted free agent couldn't land an NHL deal after spending most of the offseason recovering from a shoulder injury, but according to Fox's report, agent Igor Larionov told R-Sport that Loktionov received several NHL offers before choosing the KHL one.

Last season, while he was with the Devils, I asked Loktionov about coming here from his hometown of Voskresensk, Russia, the adjustment to American life and if he'd consider KHL life as a better option compared to fourth-line, in-and-out-of-the-lineup life in the NHL.

Here's what he said: 

"When I came here, I wasn’t scared," Lokitonov said. "I wanted to play in the NHL. It was my dream. That’s the reason I came here. The KHL, there’s good money. A lot of players don’t want to play in the AHL. There’s more money [in Russia].

"When I was playing hockey as a kid, it was my dream. I was from a small town. In my hometown, it’s 80,000 people there. But there were a lot of NHL players like Valeri Kamensky, Igor Larionov, even Andrei Markov playing right now and Slava Kozlov, so we have a bunch of guys. You see pictures of those guys playing in the NHL and winning Stanley Cups and you want to play there too."

It seems the opportunity to play a small role, perhaps on a two-way deal in the NHL, wasn't as attractive as the KHL deal, and understandably so. Stats.HockeyAnalysis.com shows Loktionov has been an excellent possession player in recent years and relatively productive (22 points in 68 games last year despite 13 minutes per game), and if teams needing bottom-six help (which is virtually all of them) weren't willing to pay fair market value for him, a KHL move was maybe his best option.

West vs. East

It's common knowledge that the West is a better conference than the East. Either you know that or you are a fan of a team in the East and draw much of your self-esteem from the quality of your favorite team's conference. The chart in this July story about the West getting stronger in the offseason will highlight the point.

We are two months into the 2014-15 season; so is the West continuing to dominate the East?

Season	West record	West Pts. Pct.	East record	East Pts. Pct.
2013-14	246-150-52	.616	202-188-58	.516
2014-15	74-50-16	.585	68-58-16	.535

Not really, although the West is still getting the better of the East.

That gap of 0.50 in points percentage between conferences is the third smallest since 2005-06, when the West's superiority began being exerted for the next nine seasons. Visually, seeing the 2014-15 records above doesn't scream dominance, as both conferences have more regulation/overtime wins than losses, and overtime losses are rationalized as ties by many people.

It's still the West's league, but the East has made strides. 

Who Is Connor McDavid-ing This Week?

The tank battle for Connor McDavid will be quite the scene this season as teams stumble over each other to finish last in the standings, thus guaranteeing either McDavid or future American hero Jack Eichel.

Here's how it's looking entering Tuesday (without the Buffalo Sabres!):

Ronald Martinez/Getty Images

1. Edmonton Oilers (6-15-4, 14 pts)

People loosely throw the word "dynasty" around these days, but that's exactly what we're looking at with these Edmonton Oilers. After picking first in 2010, 2011 and 2012, the Oilers had to settle for picking seventh in 2013 and third last year. Was the magic waning, or could the Oilers find first-overall-pick glory again?

If this 10-game losing streak (0-7-3) is any indication, we could be witnessing history. A fourth No. 1 pick in five (non-lockout) seasons would make the Oilers the unquestionable franchise of the moment. The good news: Four of their next five games are against the Ducks and Sharks. The only thing standing in the way of the Oilers pulling it off is pride, and we're probably a week or two away from that no longer being an issue.

2. Columbus Blue Jackets (7-15-2, 16 pts)

Let's not write off the Jackets' potential for elite tanking, even if they stumbled to a 2-1 win against Florida on Monday. The win snapped a six-game losing streak, but it's probably just a temporarily blow struck against the cause of proper tanking.

The Jackets have three wins in their past 18 games, so let's not dismiss Columbus yet. With games against Florida and Philadelphia this week, their dedication to losing will be tested.

3. Carolina Hurricanes (7-13-3, 17 pts)

The good news is the Hurricanes have lost seven of nine; the bad news is the Hurricanes seem to be playing better of late. They've outshot their opponents in three straight, and five of eight, and one of those seven losses was a 2-0 defeat at the hands of the Sharks in a game the Hurricanes won the shot battle 45-19.

On the bright side, the Hurricanes opened a five-game homestand with a loss to the Penguins on Saturday. Their next four opponents are the Predators, Capitals, Red Wings and Devils. There's a strong chance the Hurricanes can lose three of those games, but a couple bounces and they could win three. This week will be a big test for Carolina.

Goal of the Week

Sometimes, it's easy to pick these.

The speed, the move, the coordination, the jump, the ability to lift the puck that high on a fadeaway backhand shot. If the Sabres aren't careful, they may play themselves out of Connor McDavid contention.

Questions and Answers

Got a question? Tweet me @davelozo or email me at [e-mail], but please don't call before 9 a.m. I will answer any of your questions about hockey or whatever if it's a good question.

"

@DaveLozo Q: are there any players you think are better/worse than their underlying #s? If so, who and why?

— Jack (@JLM925) December 2, 2014"

Oh, absolutely. I don't have a running list or anything. It's more like I'll be watching a game and have that thought one way or another about a player, or a player's name will come up in conversation and I'll think about it.

After spending two minutes thinking about this during a commercial break in the network broadcast of Over Her Dead Body, two players come to mind.

Better than his fancy stats: Paul Martin

Worse than his fancy stats: Jason Spezza

I could go into lengthy explanations for why I feel this way, but at the end of it, it's just an opinion about two players I've watched a lot. But I do think there are more players worse than their fancy stats (Mike Green is a close second to Spezza for me) than there are players who are better than their fancy stats.

I will now stop saying fancy stats and answer another question.

I love questions about the future of backup goaltenders. I think he's at best a career backup with a steady job; at worst he's a full-time AHL goaltender. 

No.

"

@DaveLozo is voracek the best player in the world

— Muneeb Alam (@muneebalamcu) December 1, 2014"

No.

"

@DaveLozo how do you feel about the Gomez signing in NJ?

— Nikki Stanziale (@nikkistanziale) December 1, 2014"

I feel like this is a bad thing. It's a bad thing from the standpoint that injuries to Travis Zajac and Adam Henrique are going to hurt the Devils short term this season, and the fact there are no better options in the system than Gomez speaks to the lack of depth in said system in the long term.

It's great from a nostalgic standpoint—hey, I remember when Scott Gomez won a Stanley Cup!—but from a success-in-2014-15 standpoint, it's not great.

All statistics via NHL.com unless otherwise noted.

Dave Lozo covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter: @DaveLozo.