Alex Goligoski couldn’t identify the source of his feelings. He couldn’t label them either.

It wasn’t apathy. He still cared about his team and teammates. It wasn’t discontent. He was happy playing in Arizona. All he knew was that something felt off last season; a general malaise had crept in. He had lost his passion for hockey.

“I’d say maybe mid-December,” the Coyotes defenseman said. “Personally, I really got down and I wasn’t having a ton of fun. It wasn’t due to anything in particular. I can’t even really explain it. There was nothing really causing it. I just didn’t have that excitement that I normally have coming to the rink.”

Goligoski talked to his wife and father about his feelings, but he said that’s as far as it went.

“I didn’t seek out advice and maybe I should have,” he said, “but when I was going through it, I don’t think I fully realized it or understood it.”

It wasn’t until after he snapped out of his funk that Goligoski realized he wasn’t alone.

He read an article in which Columbus forward Cam Atkinson admitted to experiencing burnout. He read another in which St. Louis Blues forward Ryan O’Reilly, then with the Buffalo Sabres, admitted he had “lost the love of the game multiple times.” And just this week, Winnipeg Jets defenseman Dustin Byfuglien took a leave of absence and is reportedly contemplating retirement because he isn’t sure if he wants to keep playing hockey.

“The feelings I had were exactly the same kind of stuff they were talking about,” Goligoski said. “It probably is more common than we all think.”

Andy Swärd thinks so. The renowned mental coach has worked with multiple hockey players (among other athletes) in Sweden, including New Jersey’s Jesper Bratt. Ottawa’s Anders Nilsson, Colorado’s André Burakovsky, Carolina’s Anton Forsberg and Buffalo’s Jonas Johansson.

“We have a tendency to stigmatize certain words and feelings and states that a human being can be in, and being a player is no different than being human,” he said. “The kind of pressure and the kind of situations that we are exposed to as players, if we had those same kind of pressures as humans outside of hockey, people would ask, ‘How are you doing? How are you coping with this?’ You have to find a solution.”

When working with players, Swärd helps them process, analyze and accept the feelings they are experiencing through conversations, stress tests, breathing techniques, journal writing and other methods. That process can also help them overcome the culture of sports that tells them to suck it up or man up.

“I call it the changed state instead of calling it fear or demotivation or anxiety,” he said. “You have to get the drama away from the situation because it’s a natural reaction in an unnatural situation. It’s actually not the person’s fault, it’s the environment that has put so many pressures on them for so long so the body does what it should do. It starts to shut down.”

Swärd said with players, there are often external factors in their personal lives that are impacting them.

“Very often, it’s not playing hockey that puts players in this changed state but the body cannot differentiate the problems or issues that create the changed state so we start thinking it’s the hockey,” he said. “It could be that you had a death in the family or you had a baby or you moved to a new house. They have the pressure to perform so when they don’t perform, they blame the hockey and they question, ‘Am I good to do this anymore? I can’t feel the motivation.’”

Swärd hopes that by working with athletes, he can help them navigate their feelings and become better prepared for the challenges they face.

“Once you break that code, it’s much easier to perform better and get your motivation back,” he said.

Goligoski’s awakening came just after the Coyotes’ week off in late January.

“I remember playing San Jose after the break in San Jose and those games are tough,” he said. “A week off, then you travel and play. It’s a tough spot for everyone.

“I just remember feeling so good going into that game and during the game I was having a blast. If there’s one point, that’d probably be it. That’s when I knew I had found that fire again and now it just seems easy because it’s natural for me. I love competition and I love hockey. Looking back, I almost can’t believe that I had a period where I felt like that. When I was in it though, it’s almost like I didn’t realize it until I had that feeling again, then it was so obvious.”

At one point last season, Coyotes coach Rick Tocchet contemplated benching Goligoski, so it’s no surprise that Goligoski’s overall review of his season isn’t glowing. He had 27 points, his lowest total for a full season in his career.

“I don’t think it was great,” he said. “I pride myself on being a good two-way player but we played in the D zone maybe more than we wanted to. We focused on being really sharp there and that maybe took away a little bit of other stuff I can do, but there was definitely that lull in my season where I didn’t like my game at all. I hit a tough patch, but I felt like I got out of that and started to play really well toward the end of the season.”

Goligoski, 34, has witnessed many unexpected plot twists since signing a five-year, $27.375 million contract with the Coyotes in June 2016. The coaching staff for which he thought he would be playing is gone. The ownership group by whom he thought he’d be getting paid is gone, and all of the regulars in that 2016-17 lineup are gone, except for Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Brad Richardson, Jakob Chychrun, Lawson Crouse and Christian Dvorak.

“It has been a bit of a whirlwind,” he said, “but realistically, I was aware that it might be a little bit of a rebuild situation. Maybe it didn’t go as everyone expected and things don’t look like I imagined they would, but I like where we are now. In the last year and a half, we have established who the players are that are going to be here. We’ve had some really young guys grow up a bit and we have a good group of veterans. We’re in a good position. There’s a lot of skill and talent here. It really was that vision that convinced me to come in the first place.”

The presence of better offensive talent and the addition of offensive-minded assistant coach Phil Housley could also benefit Goligoski’s game.

“When you’re playing under different circumstances, you tend to hold back a little bit because you don’t want to be a defensive liability,” Housley said. “I think Alex is a tremendous skater and a very smart hockey player. He can read situations well and he can beat a forecheck with his skating ability. The next step is not necessarily to be risky but go for it, get on the attack. He has some great abilities and I think he can add to the offense. Even in a shutdown role, you can be productive offensively.”

That perspective, the growth of the team’s young core, and the identity the Coyotes forged last season through an unending string of injuries has Goligoski feeling renewed as the 2019-20 season begins. He has been skating since late May and he put in extra work on his skills to avoid the erosion he believes comes with age.

“I have a really good outlook this year,” he said. “It feels like we’re finally at a tipping point where realistically, our expectations should be a lot higher now. As a group, we’re ready to take off.

“I’m really looking forward to this season personally to get back to my game of creating offense. I think we’re going to be playing in the offensive zone more. I’m excited to have fun playing hockey again.”

(Photo: Norm Hall / NHLI via Getty Images)