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After taking a year off from hockey, Simon Gagne will be back on National Hockey League ice this fall, vying for a spot on the Boston Bruins by way of a professional tryout.
Gagne’s resume is long, respected, and is known by most Bruins fans from his tenure with the Philadelphia Flyers (or cursed out due to his performance in the 2010 Eastern Conference Semifinals against Boston). But at 34 years old -- and again, after a year away from the game -- the obvious question simply has be to just what’s left in his tank? That’s assuming that there’s anything left to begin with, mind you.
For Gagne, the year-long sabbatical wasn’t part of the plan. It all seemed to happen though when the Flyers opted to sign Dan Cleary before Cleary decided that he’d rather go back to Hockeytown at the 11th hour instead. This was all while Gagne told other clubs that he was only interested in returning to Philadelphia. And though Cleary never really became a Flyer, Gagne didn’t either, and the Quebec-born winger found himself stuck in mid-September limbo. And for a player with an injury history as lengthy as that of Gagne, that’s an absolute death sentence.
So he did some TV work back home, talked about his desire to get back to the rink, and found himself with a chance (a small one) to make the Black and Gold’s cash-strapped 2014-15 squad.
"With all of my injuries, I knew the end was going to come at one point," Gagne said in an interview with Philly.com in Feb. 2014. "Watching games, I still believe I can play, I know I could do a lot better than some of these guys. It is all about the health issues in my past. When you give big money to players, you want them to play and not sit on the bench. I totally understand that."
If Gagne’s on the Bruins, it’s to be on the ice, really. He’s not best served as their 13th forward like a Jordan Caron (or perhaps Justin Florek), so the goal then becomes finding a line where he’d gel the easiest. Though he’s a left wing, some think that Gagne could find a home on the Bruins’ top line with David Krejci and Milan Lucic. Gagne’s last NHL stint came with a finish on the Flyers’ top line with Claude Giroux and Jakub Voracek, finishing the year with eight points in the final dozen games of the year. He was logging big minutes and making an impact. Even so, however, I’m not really sold on the idea of Gagne jumping right back into things at the world’s highest level and logging those minutes on an efficient, full-time basis.
I don’t think he’d bump Brad Marchand off that second line with Patrice Bergeron, nor is he fit for a fourth-line style of play (look at his exodus from the Los Angeles Kings), so you’d look towards the B’s third line centered by Carl Soderberg as a potential landing spot.
The entire complexion of that line is interesting, to say the least.
The line truly exploded when Claude Julien decided to give the keys to the middle to Soderberg -- an offensive juggernaut compared to the veteran Chris Kelly -- and let Soderberg work some magic with Loui Eriksson. But with Eriksson likely heading to the top line this season, there’s a need for some scoring punch on the wing with the big bodied Swede. Kelly will likely be on one of the wings of that line, absorbing some defensive responsibilities as the pivot in defensive-zone starts, so a Gagne over say a Danny Paille or Florek seems like an easy call for the Bruins. This is from an offensive standpoint, anyways, which is what the Black and Gold could and should be looking at given the loss of their 30-goal scorer, Jarome Iginla, this summer.
Gagne’s another left shot, and on a Boston roster simply loaded with left shots (Bergeron, Krejci, Craig Cunningham, Seth Griffith, and David Pastrnak are the only notable right shots), there’s no doubt he’ll have to have a strong camp to make the Bruins.
But Gagne knows that teams love veteran help in the postseason, and that his playoff resume is what teams are interested in, even after a year away from the game.
The Bruins, after three straight disappointing playoff series losses on home ice, are no exception.
Ty Anderson has been covering the Boston Bruins for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, is a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com