Gagne, He Win

He's back in Black...and orange, folks.

Simon Gagne (or his agent rather) finally wised up and got a deal done with General Manager Bob Clarke.

All it took was for Clarke, who had thus far made all the overtures in this summer-long process, to get on a plane and meet #12 and his agent (former career back-up goaltender Bob Sauve) way up in Montreal. Ca-larkie apparently wasn't worried one bit that Gagne would sign before the start of training camp, and I'm sure he really thought one bit about it while he sat on his deck in Ocean City, New Jersey, sinking beers while the Nights in Venice floats rode by his place on the bay.

Anyway, the deal is five years, 26.25 million. According to the Daily News, it's a full $250,000 more than Clarke's last overture. So Gagne played his cards right, tuned Clarke like a grand piano, and wrung a hell of a lot more money than I'm sure he wanted to give for more years than he wanted to give.

In case anyone might think otherwise, it's a damn good thing this got wrapped up at the 10th hour, with training camp set to open on Friday.

Take a look around the league, there ain't anyone who'd come close to Simon's age (26) and his production last year (47 goals, 79 points) for a discount - certainly not a discount Flyers organ-eye-zation has been whimpering for now that cost certainty and a soft salary cap has forced the club to be frugal with their ducats. And since Peter Forsberg has a slight problem with shooting at the net, the sum total of anyone Hitch could put on that front line with Foppa couldn't add up to that explosive chemistry from last year when both were healthy.

Flyers fans, lift up your glasses in triumph. We've got a full house, with the preseason opener eight days away.