Longtime Flyer Simon Gagne retires

FOR ALL intents and purposes, Simon Gagne's career was over in December, when he left the Boston Bruins to care for his late father, Pierre, who was losing his battle with liver cancer.

His last game with the Bruins was Dec. 6. Fittingly, he scored a goal, one of just three he scored in his 23 games last season. He took a leave of absence following that game in Arizona and never returned to the Bruins after his father passed away the day after Christmas.

Yesterday morning, Gagne officially decided to call it a career.

Gagne, 35, leaves the game nine goals shy of reaching 300. He tallied 601 points in 822 NHL games, 691 of which came in Philadelphia. He had 264 goals and 271 assists with the Flyers, ranking him 10th all-time on the team's list of career point leaders.

Gagne, the 22nd overall pick in the 1998 draft, was a four-time All-Star during his 10 1/2 seasons with the Flyers.

Statistically, his best season came in 2005-06, when he had 47 goals and 79 points, both career highs. He might have scored 50 goals that season had he not missed 10 games due to injury.

The injury bug bit Gagne hard as his career wore on, most prominently with concussions, which ruined his 2007-08 season, limiting him to 25 games. He responded with 74 points in 79 games the following year. Hernia troubles slowed his 2009-10 season, but Gagne probably scored two of the biggest goals of his Flyers career in that postseason . . . after suffering a broken toe.

First, Gagne's overtime goal in an elimination Game 3, his first back from the toe injury, extended the series with Boston and helped ignite the come-from-behind series victory. In the clinching Game 7 in Boston, Gagne scored the game- and series-winning goal, a power-play tally with seven minutes to go.

The Flyers advanced to the Stanley Cup Final before losing to Chicago in six games.

"I have so many good memories with the Flyers," Gagne said on a media conference call. "We always bring back the bad ones, but there are too many good memories in Philly to tell you them all. That year was really special. It's just too bad at the end we were a little bit out of gas. Definitely, my best moment with the Flyers.

"I'm always going to be a Flyer for the rest of my life and I want to be a part of that future."

The Flyers traded him that offseason to Tampa Bay. An injury-riddled stint in Los Angeles followed his one season in Tampa, though he won a Stanley Cup in 2012 with the Kings, playing in the last four games of the Final against New Jersey. Flyers general manager Ron Hextall was a Kings executive at the time.

"It was pretty neat," Hextall said of Gagne winning the Cup. "You look at Kimmo [Timonen, who won the 2015 Stanley Cup with Chicago], that's the perfect ending, the perfect scenario . . . It's pretty damn good when a guy puts in that much time and finally gets to lift the Cup."

The Kings traded Gagne back to the Flyers in February 2013 for a draft pick and he scored in his first night back in Philadelphia, ending a career-long, 32-game goal-less streak.

Gagne took a year off from professional hockey in 2013-14 due to the deteriorating health of his father, who was once at a Flyers training camp with the Quebec Aces in 1967.

In 90 career playoff games in Philadelphia, Gagne recorded 47 points and scored six game-winning goals.

"Sometimes the more distance you get from a player, the more you forget how good he was," Hextall said. "But he was a real impact player for us. He was one of those guys, scored big goals, scored a lot of goals.

"He was a hell of a player."

Gagne won a gold medal for his native Canada at the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City. He plans to live permanently in Quebec City and is focusing on spending time with his wife and three children, the youngest born four months ago.