Sam Gagner is a fan favorite looking to play an 18th NHL season. As Adam Proteau explains, you must appreciate his dogged determination to take on any role.
If you hang around long enough as an NHL player, you’re quite likely to get humbled in some way, shape or form.
Very few NHLers are afforded the constant comforts and cash-ins that come with being an elite player at the highest levels for their entire on-ice career. Most have no choice but to come to grips with the fact they’re replaceable assets whose final kick at the can could come at a moment’s notice.
That said, there’s something very compelling about players nearing the end of their stint in hockey’s top league. You can see they’re intent on doing whatever is necessary to extend their NHL time as long as possible, and you become a fan of them regardless of your devotion to any particular team.
Take Sam Gagner, for instance. The longtime forward just turned 35 years old over the weekend, and although he has yet to sign a contract to play in the 2024-25 season, Gagner has scratched and clawed his way onto NHL rosters since he stopped becoming a full-time NHLer in 2018-19.
He's continued to train at his hockey camp in Muskoka, Ont., and is determined to play an 18th season, according to Kurt Leavins of the Edmonton Journal.
We certainly wouldn’t rule out Gagner playing another year or few as he continues to chase his dream of being on a Cup-winning squad. He’s got no ego that would prevent him from accepting a minor-league assignment, and he’s really doing everything in his power to show his true love for the game.
Since 2014-15, he’s played on seven different NHL teams and three different AHL squads. Players with that kind of resume often become winners of the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy for perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey. And that award may yet be in the cards for Gagner if he manages to latch on to another NHL team this coming season.
In Gagner’s 17 seasons of pro hockey, he’s played in 1,043 regular-season NHL games, including 18 games last season for the Edmonton Oilers that drafted him sixth overall in 2007. It was Gagner’s third stint with the Oilers, and he posted five goals and 10 points in that span to bump his career NHL totals to 197 goals and 529 points.
He’s played only 11 Stanley Cup playoff games in his career, posting four assists in those games. But when a team brings someone like Gagner aboard, it isn’t to be a complete needle-mover. Instead, he’s on the roster because he’s a true professional who accepts whatever role he’s given, and if that role is mainly as insurance and a fourth-line spot at best, he’ll happily take it.
Gagner certainly has adjusted well to the slings and arrows of an NHL career in part because his father, Dave Gagner, was a stellar NHLer who played 15 years in the league. Dave Gagner generated more offense in his NHL days, but Sam Gagner’s longevity is equally impressive in its own way.
Gagner’s a battler and a dogged competitor who can be depended on as a depth player. When he does go to the AHL, he makes every effort to get back to The Show. Indeed, last season, Gagner appeared in 15 AHL games for the Bakersfield Condors – his second stint with that franchise.
How can you not appreciate someone like that?
This isn’t to say Gagner hasn’t been aptly rewarded with NHL contract after NHL contract, but he certainly hasn’t pulled in the money that allows NHL stars to retire in their early thirties. He’s become more of a blue-collar worker bee over the years, and fans have invested their emotions in him because they see themselves in Gagner – someone who would take on any position to get another day in the big time.
Has Gagner played his final NHL game? It’s certainly possible. But it’s also possible he takes another AHL gig or professional tryout and shows the parent team he’s still got enough competitive gas left in the tank to be promoted and used at the NHL level, even if only sparingly.
You have to love players like that. You have to appreciate the sheer willpower it takes to continue to put your body and mind through the meat-grinder of an NHL season when your best days are behind you.
There have been better players than Gagner, of course – and you can say that about just about every NHLer who ever was. But when the history books complete their final chapter on Gagner’s career, they will make clear that this was a gamer of a performer, a steel-willed competitor who never let the lows of a pro career overwhelm the joy he squeezed out of the sport year in and year out.
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