The former Flyers star had an emotional return to Philadelphia on Thursday night, though he didn't have any points as the Tampa Bay Lightning improved to 3-0-0 with a 3-2 victory against the Flyers.
"The first 20 minutes were really hard," said Gagne, who was a Flyer for 10 seasons before being dealt last summer in a move to clear cap space. "I was tearing up."
The Lightning, now 3-0-0, got goals by Steven Stamkos, Dominic Moore and Pavel Kubina.
Newcomer Nikolay Zherdev and Danny Briere scored for Philadelphia (2-1-1), which lost in regulation for the first time this season.
The fans at the Wells Fargo center cheered when Gagne stepped on the ice for his first shift in the opening minute. He received a louder ovation at the first TV timeout with 13:40 left in the first period, when the Flyers showed a video montage of highlights during a timeout. Gagne waved to the crowd from the bench, then joined his new teammates for the resumption of play.
"I was up for the faceoff, anyway, so I thought it was a good time to do it," Gagne said. "I wanted to cry. I had to stop watching (the video) a couple of times. A lot of emotion. Everything started here. They showed my first goal and all the big goals. It's still hard to think about. They're always going to be in my heart. That's something I'll always remember."
Stamkos scored his fourth of the season when he beat goalie Brian Boucher to the stick side 15:11 into the game. Zherdev, one of the players signed with the money saved by trading Gagne's salary, tied it a little at 17:03 by finishing off a pass from James van Riemsdyk.
Being back in Philly emotional for Gagne
PHILADELPHIA -- Simon Gagne stared at his phone, refusing to look out the window of the bus taking the Tampa Bay Lightning from Philadelphia International Airport to their team hotel in the wee hours of Thursday morning.
"It was weird," Gagne said Thursday afternoon. "I was trying not to think too much that I was back here."
But, Gagne was back in the city he called home for 10 seasons, the city where his professional career was born and blossomed, the city where he became a star in orange and black. Only, this time he was back in Philadelphia as a visitor, flying in to a familiar airport only to take a very unfamiliar bus ride to a hotel he had never once had a reason to stay in.
In fact, Gagne said that until now he had never once stayed in a hotel in Philadelphia. The only time he had stayed in one in the area was when he was a rookie and had to shack up at a Hampton Inn near the Flyers' practice facility across the river in Voorhees, N.J.
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"I thought I picked it up," said Boucher, who stopped 21 shots. "It hit my pads pretty hard and I was shocked to see that it went in. I thought I had good positioning, I felt my butterfly was good enough, it just happened to squeak through."
Briere scored on a wrister at 9:59, but the Flyers couldn't get another puck past Dan Ellis, who made 24 saves in his first start of the season.
The win capped an emotional -- and successful -- two-night stretch for Gagne, who made his first appearance with the Bolts in his home province on Wednesday when the Lightning beat Montreal 4-3 in overtime.
The reception he got in his return to the city he called home for 10 seasons was something he'll never forget.
"You don't really realize how important you come back and get a reaction like that," he said. "If you play for the Flyers your whole career, you might not have a chance to have an ovation like that. You realize you were a big part of their life for 10 years, and that's really touching. They're always going to be in my heart. It's always going to be a special place for me."
Material from team media and wire services was used in this report
