Gagne recovering his blast from past for Flyers

Brian Boucher came and went and came back, but Simon Gagne is the only one who really bridges the Flyers' generations. He was here when Eric Lindros and John LeClair and Eric Desjardins were stars who ended up star-crossed. He is here now as a young nucleus led by Mike Richards and Jeff Carter works to hit the proper notes and hit them consistently. He just turned 30, but Gagne has been here forever.

This has been a terrible year for him, frankly. After a solid, 34-goal season in 2008-09, there was reason for optimism. But surgery in early November to repair tears in Gagne's abdominal wall, as well as a hernia, put everything in doubt. Even when he came back on Dec. 19, it was without his customary speed or conditioning or anything — and he couldn't score. In the 36 games he played before the Olympic break, Gagne had only seven goals.

"As a player, I know myself," he said. "I don't want to miss any time early in the season. I need that time. It's where I get my game speed, my game shape, feeling good about my stick, stuff like that. Right after Christmas, or right before, it's where I start to feel good — and I've got another 4 or 5 months before the playoffs come.

"But having the surgery at the end of October, and missing November and December, you get a step back, almost like two steps back, almost like missing training camp. As a player, I don't like that. I came back and didn't feel in great shape. You feel you're missing one step, everything ...

"You feel like you're slow shooting the puck," he said. "You feel like you're tired when you're shooting the puck. Right now, I feel like it's starting to come. I've got my speed, not only with my skates but with every aspect of the game. That makes a big difference. That's why I'm starting to get more scoring chances."

Gagne scored a goal Sunday night in the Flyers' snoozy, 3-1 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs. It was his fourth goal in the four games since the Olympic break ended. His nascent resurgence is one of the more important things that has happened to this team in the last few days.

The Flyers still look sloppy, not nearly the machine they appeared to be building before the Olympic interruption. So you look for other signs as they work to re-find their chemistry, and Gagne is one.

He admitted that, "When you go 10 games without scoring a goal ... I was not worried, but maybe a little bit." And it goes without saying how important it is for him to re-establish himself as a significant scoring threat.

"When you look at every team winning the Stanley Cup, it's coming from everybody," Gagne said. "Look at Pittsburgh last year, Game 7, [Sidney] Crosby and [Evgeni] Malkin, you didn't see them doing a lot. You saw different players scoring goals. You need so much balance to win hockey games. You get those matchups sometimes, where the other team puts its best defenseman or its shutdown line against you or against Carter ... and you need the other lines scoring goals.

"I know what I have to do to help this team win. I have to play well defensively, but I'm the type of guy who has to put the puck in the net every once in a while. I'll try to do that the rest of the season, and hopefully that will get it going in the playoffs."

Still, there is pressure. It is something Gagne battles constantly. He is a familiar name and a familiar face. He makes a good buck and has for a while. The town craves/demands a winner. It all factors in.

"The pressure comes with everything," he said. "You agree to a long-term contract. You're here for 10, 11 years. You know why the team likes you and you know what you have to do. And if you don't do it . . .

"After the surgery, even though I knew about needing to get back in shape and everything, still, I was feeling bad. I wasn't helping the team, not even chipping in once in a while. It's definitely good to see the puck go in now and to make a difference . . .

"But [the pressure], it's always been that way for me. For whatever reason, it was the way I was in junior and it's the way I've been here since '99. Since those big guys left, Eric and LeClair and all that, the pressure was a little bit more on myself. Now we have guys like Richie and Carter and [Danny] Briere and all that, and the pressure is on us now.

"It's up to us to make the difference," Gagne said.

And now, finally, he is beginning to do his part.