Before I head down I-95 to the Carolinas for the grueling battle to escape the Washington, D.C. beltway and get past similar snarl-ups in Richmond, Va., there remains this little matter with the Flyers concerning Simon Gagne and Keith Primeau.

The Flyers and Gagne’s agent, Bob Sauve, continue to fax proposals back and forth. It’s not easy this summer to figure out what a player is worth because once again, NHL clubs overspent in free agency and paid players more than their worth.

What was it Clarke said a few weeks ago? It’s like the lockout never happened?

If Martin Havlat is worth $6 million a season _ he was overpaid _ then you could argue that Gagne is worth the same. If Alex Tanguay, who is a genuine “comparable” to Gagne and from the same draft class, is worth $5.25 million a season, there’s a good argument for Gagne being worth the same.

My gut feeling is that somewhere between Tanguay and Havlat lies the final figure that Flyers general manager Bob Clarke has penciled into his salary cap to pay Gagne for the season. Nothing more, nothing less.

The fact Gagne did not take the club to arbitration, in my mind, said he will sign something at the end. Gagne does not like to stir things up. He prefers the easy route to negotiations and Sauve’s temperament at the bargaining table perfectly suits Gagne’s personality.

But this might drag into August which neither side anticipated weeks ago.

Having spoke to both parties on Monday, I was left again with the feeling they remain a fair distance apart on salary even though both are scheduled to talk either Thursday or Friday.

As for Primeau … I think the Flyers have erred by waiting this long to address the fact that it does not appear he will return. That his concussion symptoms have returned tells me he remains a sizeable health risk. Remember: he’s been sick since October.

There are several ancillary issues here. First, the list of quality replacements for Primeau is dwindling, especially now that Michael Peca is headed to Toronto.

Yet the bigger issue, in my mind, is not that Primeau has to be necessarily be replaced by another center, but his leadership has to be replaced in the dressing room. Clarke told me yesterday that was huge in his mind, as well • I’ve been saying that for months. You just don’t go out and replace team captains and veteran leadership in free agency.

Are there any fans in Detroit who think GM Ken Holland is going to be able to replace Steve Yzerman in the Wings’ dressing room easily? Guys like Yzerman are hard finds anywhere in the league. And while Primeau might not be in Yzerman’s league, he is certainly at a status as a captain that the Flyers recognize is going to be tough to replace.

That’s the No. 1 issue here. And my assumption is that from Clarke’s standpoint, he knows he can’t go out and get a “captain,” so to speak, so if he has to replace Primeau with a forward, leadership might not necessarily factor in.

Which means the “leadership” role has to be filled from someone currently in the dressing room. Except we saw what a disaster that was last season in the room didn’t we? Some of us think Mike Richards will someday be a terrific leader on this club. But not now. He’s too green.

This is where I think Clarke could have addressed both areas simultaneously last spring by getting Doug Weight at the trade deadline. But he wavered and Jimmy Rutherford beat him to the punch by trading for Weight in Carolina.

And we all know that Weight’s signing, along with the other moves Rutherford made, ended up with a Stanley Cup for the Hurricanes.

Forget about Derian Hatcher. I spoke to him last week and trust me, the captaincy issue of far from his mind.

“If” Peter Forsberg really, truly is healthy enough to play this fall and play without his bothersome foot injury, the loss of Primeau will sting only so much on the ice. If, however, Forsberg and Primeau are both out of the lineup in October, and that’s how the Flyers open the season, this team is in trouble.

[For more on the Flyers, click onto the following links]:

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/sports/15060920.htm

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/sports/hockey/15047155.htm

http://tsn.ca/nhl/news_story/?ID=171549&hubname=nhl

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