Simon Gagne could have been in Bruins training camp a year ago.

WILMINGTON — Simon Gagne could have been in Bruins training camp a year ago. The veteran winger had been expecting a contract offer from the Flyers that never emerged — he admits he puts all his one Black-and-Orange basket — and in late August Gagne was a man without a team.

It was at that point that Patrice Bergeron — the Bruins center is a friend of Gagne's and the two hold a charity game every summer in Quebec — asked Gagne if he'd like a shot with the Bruins, and he'd be willing to pass his name on to general manager Peter Chiarelli. But Gagne declined what would have been just a tryout offer; the veteran of 799 NHL games with 288 goals thought he could nab a real contract.

It didn't happen. With the salary cap dipping to $64.3 million last season, teams were already at their limits by early September, and GMs weren't going to move salary to make room for a 33-year-old with declining skills.

“There was no other option at that point that was making sense for me to want to go there, so I decided to take a chance and see what was going to happen in the next couple months,” Gagne said.

The phone stayed quiet. There was an offer from a Western Conference team in December, but it wanted Gagne to spend a month in the AHL first. Joining back in around Christmas would be akin to taking a final exam without attending class all semester. And Gagne knew if he flunked out in the AHL, he may not get another chance this season.

So he turned the offer down, and figured if he did come back, he would do so with a full camp and a chance to be on a level playing field. Gagne joined TVA Sports as an analyst for the Sochi Olympics and the stretch run of the NHL season. He started ramping up his workouts in May, and around late July, Bergeron asked again if Gagne wanted a chance with the Bruins.

“Now having not played last season, I know asking for a contract was not making sense,” Gagne said. “At that point on, Bergy was not surprised, so he said ‘Keep skating, stay in shape. I'll see Peter in the next couple weeks and I'll talk to him about you.’

“From that point on, [Chiarelli] spoke to my agent and spoke with Claude and everything went really good from that point on.”

Gagne is one of 12 candidates for three openings for forwards — temporarily four with Reilly Smith's absence. He has the highest profile in the group. Gagne is a two-time 40-goal scorer. He put the dagger in the Bruins' 2010 collapse to the Flyers with the winning goal in Game 7 (ironically, fellow camp invite Ville Leino assisted on that goal).

Through four days of camp, Gagne has skated at right wing on a line with Daniel Paille and Ryan Spooner. As Gagne tries to shake off the rust — his last game was April 27, 2013 — the Bruins are viewing him like a player who missed much of a season with injury, a la Dennis Seidenberg and Adam McQuaid.

“I know what it takes and right now I don't feel that I'm 100 percent physically and it's getting better every day on the ice,” Gagne said. “I'm smart enough to see where I'm at. It's only Day 4 of camp, so I'm not expecting to be at the top of my game [on] Day 4, so we've got another two weeks before the season starts. Hopefully I've got all that time to get where I want to be. It's not like it's getting worse.”

“We may have to project,” coach Claude Julien said. “If he continues to improve throughout the preseason and can project that he can be better, that helps us make a decision as well.”

The Bruins will be evaluating options for a 13th forward, someone who could go a stretch without playing, then plug in when injury strikes. They would like an upgrade from Jordan Caron. Could Gagne make more sense for that role than a young player who'd be better served by playing in the AHL?

“There's a lot that comes into play there,” Julien said. “There's the salary cap, there's the potential of the young player vs. the older player, the experience. I think those are all the things we have to take into consideration where we have to make those decisions.”

This year, Gagne was willing to put himself in a position to be at the whim of such decisions.

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