The Flyers traded Simon Gagne today to the Tampa Bay Lightning, which ends Gagne's time as the longest tenured Flyer. The Flyers traded Gagne to the Lightning in exchange for defenseman Matt Walker and a 4th round draft pick.
The move was not necessarily done to bring is equal talent value, but was done to get rid of the contract of Simon Gagne. The Flyers needed to and were able to make this move after they signed Nikolai Zherdev last week. Zherdev is the man who will take Gagne's spot at the forward spot. By getting rid of Gagne, they Flyers are able to get back under the salary cap. Gagne was owed $5.25 million this season, and was under contract for 1 more season.
Even though Gagne was oft-injured, and appears to be older than his current age of 30, Gagne still will be missed simply because he has been on the Flyers for 10 years. Gagne was a former first round pick of the Flyers in 1998. And in today's sports, it is rare to see a player stay on the same team for even close to that amount of time. In fact, only David Akers can claim he was on a Philadelphia team for longer than Gagne currently up until today.
Gagne leaves the Flyers ranked 10th in both career games played for the Flyers, and 10th in career points for the Flyers. Even though it just happened very recently, Gagne will always be remembered as scoring one of the best goals in Flyers history - the Game 7 goal against the Boston Bruins that put the Flyers ahead 4-3 in the game, capping off the 3-0 series and 3-0 in game deficit.
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