Aside from speed, what attributes do players lose as they age?

[BLNY]

Reaction time

 

[nbwingsfan]

I'm in my late 50's. Personal experience.

It's not so much a change in pain tolerance as it is in pain quantity...if that makes sense.

You start out and pretty much everything works as intended and pushing the limits is easier. When you get hurt, it's quicker to heal and you heal more effectively.

After a while, your body slows down. Old injuries start to become arthritic. New injuries take longer to heal and you heal less fully. Your ceiling drops...what was once possible becomes out of reach...and your recovery time expands far beyond what it was as a young adult.

Eventually, you are either too hurting to put in top effort, or too wary of getting hurt to put in top effort. You reach pain saturation.

I don’t know if it was intentional but this post made me feel very

 

[JPT]

I'm in my late 50's. Personal experience.

It's not so much a change in pain tolerance as it is in pain quantity...if that makes sense.

You start out and pretty much everything works as intended and pushing the limits is easier. When you get hurt, it's quicker to heal and you heal more effectively.

After a while, your body slows down. Old injuries start to become arthritic. New injuries take longer to heal and you heal less fully. Your ceiling drops...what was once possible becomes out of reach...and your recovery time expands far beyond what it was as a young adult.

Eventually, you are either too hurting to put in top effort, or too wary of getting hurt to put in top effort. You reach pain saturation.

There's this huge guy at my gym who eats Jolly Ranchers all of the time. His head is huge, he has back acne, but he recovers in no time at all. I would ask him what his secret is if I didn't feel like he would swing a bench at me.

 

[Esq]

Unfortunately, players get old. We have all seen it. Malkin, Crosby, and Ovechkin are not as good as they once were. Aside from speed, what is it that make players lose the "it"-factor. Why are they no longer the most dangerous guy on the ice?

I suspect one answer could be reflexes, but I am unsure just how big of a factor that is. What things do you look at when you watch old highlights and think, "Wow! He could no longer do that."

It's the explosiveness. Toews is a poster child for this, even before COVID.

 

[hangman005]

On the flip side cashing in on the earlybird special is an attribute that improves.

 

[tucker3434]

Everything. I pulled a muscle in my neck washing my hair. That was over a week ago. I may never turn my head again. This didn’t happen in my 20’s.

 

[Tawnos]

This is a hot take:

While I 100% agree that hockey IQ is the least likely to be lost as you age and can even be improved (Ekholm being a prime example), I do think it's possible for a player to lose hockey IQ as well. Alzner's physical skills and his decision-making all deteriorated as he aged.

Nah, that's still a physical deterioration. What ends up happening is that the time it takes to choose the right option and execute it on a given play is just slightly longer. We're talking microseconds. This is all bound up in the reaction time that other posters have mentioned. He didn't lose hockey IQ. He lost the ability to apply his hockey IQ as effectively and as often.

Think of it this way. A player needs to make a choice between four actions. Let's call them A, B, C, and D. In the prime of their career, their brain could evaluate all 3 options, choose the correct one, and then take that action in the time they have to do so. As they get older, they might not be able to evaluate option D and maybe not even option C before they're forced to make a choice by the opponent. All they can do is A or B, when they might not have ever chosen one of those options in the past. It seems like their hockey IQ is worse, but it's really their reaction time. (Obviously, this is oversimplified, but it serves the point)

Rangers fans are seeing this happen with Zibanejad right now. The stuff he does in the OZ at even strength, when there's less time and space than on the PP, seems mind-boggling at times. The reality is that he's still trying to operate how he could even 2-3 years ago and the connection between his brain and body is just not fast enough to do it the same way anymore. The only thing a player can really do about it is to simplify his game and not every player is going to be able to make that kind of adjustment. It sounds like Alzner never could. As a Rangers fan, I hope Zibanejad gets there.

 

[Nikolajs Sillers]

Eye sight? Carter Hutton couldn't see a beach ball at the times. Admitted himself. Edit .Also hair?

 

[Cup or Bust]

Probably the biggest thing is agility and mobility. When you are young your body feels like a rubber band and you can just do whatever you want physically and feel great. As you age that rubber band gets tighter and you can't just go 0-100 physically like you could when you were young. I think losing that agility and mobility is what causes you to lose speed as you age no matter how good of shape you keep yourself in or how much you maintain your strength. You also get injured more easily as well as you age. Everything just seems to get tighter and less flexible as you age.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Has anyone said "teeth" yet?

 

[Cursed Lemon]

Honestly, I think you lose a certain amount of killer instinct when you get into your 30s.

Your 20s is basically your prove-it time. Maybe it's a psychological thing more than a medical thing, maybe you're young and your circumstances are still fresh in your head and as time goes on it begins to feel a lot more like "yeah, I've been here before", like a routine rather than an opportunity.

A big maybe, and perhaps the tippy-top professional athletes are the ones who don't happen to succumb to that, but I wouldn't count it out.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

Reflexes and recovery ability

 

[EdJovanovski]

I think hockey IQ is really the only thing that can improve with age. Maybe vision as well.

And all the intangibles, which I think are important and under appreciated by new age fans/analytics crowd. Leadership, taking younger players under their wing and offering guidance on & off the ice; as well as the ability to stay calm under pressure

 

[Fig]

Nah, that's still a physical deterioration. What ends up happening is that the time it takes to choose the right option and execute it on a given play is just slightly longer. We're talking microseconds. This is all bound up in the reaction time that other posters have mentioned. He didn't lose hockey IQ. He lost the ability to apply his hockey IQ as effectively and as often.

Think of it this way. A player needs to make a choice between four actions. Let's call them A, B, C, and D. In the prime of their career, their brain could evaluate all 3 options, choose the correct one, and then take that action in the time they have to do so. As they get older, they might not be able to evaluate option D and maybe not even option C before they're forced to make a choice by the opponent. All they can do is A or B, when they might not have ever chosen one of those options in the past. It seems like their hockey IQ is worse, but it's really their reaction time. (Obviously, this is oversimplified, but it serves the point)

Rangers fans are seeing this happen with Zibanejad right now. The stuff he does in the OZ at even strength, when there's less time and space than on the PP, seems mind-boggling at times. The reality is that he's still trying to operate how he could even 2-3 years ago and the connection between his brain and body is just not fast enough to do it the same way anymore. The only thing a player can really do about it is to simplify his game and not every player is going to be able to make that kind of adjustment. It sounds like Alzner never could. As a Rangers fan, I hope Zibanejad gets there.

I get where you're coming from and I agree, but I think I reach the conclusion slightly differently...

Player can successfully execute A, B, C or D when young without paying for it later. When older, player may only be able to successfully execute A or B and unable to execute C or D without paying for it later. "Simplifying a game" is basically sealing off the moves that no longer work/cause immense pain and focusing on A and B only. C and D aren't necessarily unsuccessful at and older age. It's that the younger guy will bounce back up and keep going as if little as happened but the older player might hobble off after those moves vs little issues after executing A or B.

Like if a player attempts a poke check and fails, a younger guy might be able to contort their body to take a second swing at a puck to knock it away and then bounce up to rejoin the play. Contortion isn't really something many older guys can stand back up from.

I honestly think that older guys are often just as fast as their younger self. The issue is that if they go 150% all the time, they start hurting really bad in the first few strides, let alone an entire game.

Hell, "contortion wise", I could sleep on whatever I wanted, where ever I wanted and I'd be sore for a few hours at most after I woke up. Now? A bad pillow could make me sore for a week.

 

[BraveCanadian]

Everything. I pulled a muscle in my neck washing my hair. That was over a week ago. I may never turn my head again. This didn’t happen in my 20’s.

Are you me? gotta watch out for those sudden sneezes that throw your back out too lol

 

[Mayday1980]

There was a recent study on aging that found that aging effects tend to accelerate in a person's early 40's and then again in their 60's.

Couple that with the fact that a hockey player has likely played 1500-2000 hockey games at high intensity with from a teenager to their mid 30's and there you have it.

Father time comes for us all. Except Jagr, I'm sure he's the like Highlander..... "There can be only one!"

 

[hohosaregood]

I noticed it with Pavelski and Marleau but they both lost their hands at the end. Marleau's puckhandling was pretty bad the last couple years and Pavelski did not have the tips this year.

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

Stamina, durability are the big ones

 

[Garbageyuk]

Hair

Crosby doesn’t look like he’s lost a single follicle lmao

 

[missionAvs]

Crosby doesn’t look like he’s lost a single follicle lmao

Confirms his generational status I guess no?

 

[Bank Shot]

Quite a few lose their hair.

 

[UpHere]

Balance and agility were the first to go for me

 

[Acallabeth]

Rangers fans are seeing this happen with Zibanejad right now. The stuff he does in the OZ at even strength, when there's less time and space than on the PP, seems mind-boggling at times. The reality is that he's still trying to operate how he could even 2-3 years ago and the connection between his brain and body is just not fast enough to do it the same way anymore. The only thing a player can really do about it is to simplify his game and not every player is going to be able to make that kind of adjustment. It sounds like Alzner never could. As a Rangers fan, I hope Zibanejad gets there.

I don't believe this happens as early as in the early-to-mid-30s to an extent you're describing (like Zibanejad has early-onset dementia lol). I know there's some data about cognitive decline starting at around 30 years old is some persons, but there're also studies stating that overall mental ability peaks at around 30-40 years old. We also need to factor in that on-ice decision making is the specific skill players have been training for decades, which is likely to offset the start of physical brain deterioration (if not outright overcome it).

Alznermay not be a great example of that btw. He was a defensive defenseman who played a very simple game, and he declined sharply after his groin injuries (on top of the multiple injuries due to 1000+blocked shots in the NHL alone). A player can have amazing cognitive abilities, but they're of little use if his already limited physical skillset decreases to a level insufficient for the NHL.

 

[jbeck5]

Drive.

When players are fighting for that big contract or to establish themselves, they play balls to the wall. Once they're older, they seem to not want to ruin their bodies so they play a safer physical game, which is often less effective.

Take someone like hamonic. It's not that he's super slow, though he has slowed down, and never was fast.

The biggest difference from him at 25 compared to 30+ is his willingness to sacrifice the body.

I watch clips of him in NYI and he's blocking every shot. He's hitting everything that moves, and he's dropping the gloves.

I watch him now, and he doesn't dive infront of shots, he rather contain guys than hit them hard, and he never drops the gloves.

He's just trying to stay safe until he can retire.

 

[Minnesota Knudsens]

I feel like a big one would be being less competitive. Like if you've got two kids and a dog or whatever, they're probably your main priority and hockey second

This kind of stuff is underrated. When you’re in your 20s, you think you’re never gonna die and you don’t have a whole lot of responsibility. When I hit my 30s I suddenly had a wife, kids and a house. I worked hard, started making good money and built my “empire” if you will. And then thoughts about mortality start to creep in.

Like I no longer want to die on the highway and ruin my life’s work driving home at 4am from a Hoobastank show. Pretty sure a 35 year old NHLer feels the same way.