Craig MacTavish had no doubt heard the whispers that defenceman Keith Yandle was available, and he knew for sure that the Arizona Coyotes were down a centreman after buying out Mike Ribiero.
“I received a call from Craig MacTavish early [Sunday] morning, talking about Sam Gagner. They were looking to do something with him,” Arizona GM Don Maloney recounted late Sunday evening. “Retaining some salary, which obviously got our attention.”
Maloney and MacTavish couldn’t find a deal on Gagner, however, and not long after MacTavish found the beginnings of his deal with the Tampa Bay Lightning, which would be a straight-up swap of Gagner for Teddy Purcell.
But MacTavish had been right on Maloney. The Arizona GM liked the thought of landing Gagner before free agency opens on Tuesday, and called Edmonton one more time, still to no avail.
“Basically,” Maloney said, “we hung up the phone. I said, ‘I’m going to have a beer, you have a glass of wine. If you can come up with an idea, call me back.’”
Maloney had spoken earlier with Tampa and knew GM Steve Yzerman’s goal was to clear cap space heading into free agency. But Yzerman was acquiring Gagner, who had two years left at $4.8 per. Something was fishy there, Maloney thought.
So he called east, found Yzerman willing to send a player [B.J. Crombeen] to Arizona while eating one-third of Gagner’s cap hit — all for a sixth round pick in 2015.
When it was over, Edmonton had upgraded its size and moved a player who needed a change of scenery; Arizona had filled its void at centre and grabbed Crombeen, all for a sixth-round pick; and Tampa (which later traded Nate Thompson to Anaheim for two picks) on Sunday cleared four players (including Gagner), added three picks and opened up $5.6 million in cap space.
The result was three happy teams. Now Tampa has lots of money to move on Dan Boyle and others at the deadline — we think Mike Cammalleri would fit well there — while Edmonton has a hole at centre that we’re hearing MacTavish hopes to fill with unrestricted free agent Paul Stastny.
“I feel like my name’s been up in trade rumours for a long time,” said Gagner, a lifetime Oiler who has played 481 NHL games but not a single one of them in the post-season. “You know, I haven’t done well, and it’s been a tough last few years for sure there. There’s going to be changes when things don’t go well.”
When your first-line centre is Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who is six-foot-one and hoping one day to hit the 200-pound mark, you can’t have a second-line centre as diminutive as Gagner, however scrappy he may be. Getting 6-foot-2 Leon Draisaitl in the draft immediately put a target on Gagner, and now if MacTavish can find a legit No. 2 centre on July 1, Draisaitl can perhaps find his way as a No. 3 guy, with Boyd Gordon doing the heavy lifting from the four hole.
As for Purcell, he immediately becomes the biggest man in Edmonton’s top six, even if he doesn’t really play a physical game. Purcell has just 66 penalty minutes in his 401 career games, finishing a distant 15th among Lightning forwards in hits last season, with just 13 hits in 81 games. Purcell, a St. John’s, Nfld., native who turns 29 on Sept. 8, only blocked 12 shots as well.
The story out of Tampa goes that, when Stamkos went down with a busted leg, Purcell was one of the veteran forwards whom Cooper wanted to dig in and pick up the slack. That Purcell lost his top-six job during that time likely tells us how successful he was at picking up any slack, in Cooper’s eyes.
In Edmonton, though, he’ll join a right-wing corps that includes Jordan Eberle and Nail Yakupov (both 5-foot-11), plus whomever plays the fourth line. A second line of David Perron, Purcell and Gagner’s replacement would be a decent bet, behind a first line of Nugent-Hopkins between Taylor Hall and Eberle.
And Gagner ends up under the tutelage of Dave Tippett, the perfect tonic for the only two things not to like about Gagner — his defensive game and his work in the faceoff circle.
Everybody’s happy.