Every year, NHL teams start training camp with a mixed bag of players.
You have the legit stars and the young phenoms whose places in the lineup are a bygone conclusion.
You also have the locker room leaders and middle-six staples, who are pretty comfortable too.
But as you get further down the roster, you start to see the depth guys, the AHL tweeners and the prospects all who are fighting for those few spots that are left.
However, even past all of them, there’s one group that enters training camp perhaps hungrier than anyone else: the PTOs.
Players on PTOs, professional tryouts, don’t have assured contracts like the majority of players at camp.
They’re players who are fighting and scraping just to earn the chance to play hockey at the highest level.
This year, one such player is 17-year veteran Sam Gagner.
“It’s exciting,” Gagner said about signing a PTO. “I still want to play and it’s just another opportunity at it. I’m not coming in with any expectations, I’m just going to play hard, enjoy it and leave it all out there.”
The 35-year-old journeyman forward signed a PTO with the Hurricanes before the opening of training camp.
If he makes the team, it would be the eighth franchise he’s played for.
“They’ve been a really good team the last number of years,” Gagner said when asked about his decision to sign a PTO with Carolina. “Played against them a lot and they have a certain identity to the way they play and it’s always really hard to play against. When the opportunity presented itself, I felt like it would be a good fit.”
While he’s excited about the potential opportunity, Gagner isn’t oblivious to his current place in the league either.
The Hurricanes are a team that splits camp between its regulars and its prospects and the PTOs end up being with the prospects as well.
So already, he’s hoping to stand out amongst a group much younger and faster than him.
The center also spent the past season bouncing between the NHL with the Edmonton Oilers and the Bakersfield Condors in the AHL and although he was on the roster during the Oilers run to the Stanley Cup Final, he didn’t play in any games that postseason.
“It was great,” Gagner said about the Oilers’ playoff run. “That’s an experience that you want as a player. It’s what you dream about. Going to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final. Obviously, for myself, I would have loved an opportunity to play. I felt ready, felt really good, but you just stay prepared and be a good teammate. I had a short summer, but I feel prepared for this opportunity here.”
Perhaps that view from the outside, having seen teammates competing for the Cup and feeling like he could still have been out there, is part of Gagner’s motivation to keep pushing for a place in the league.
Regardless, the one-time sixth overall pick still believes he has plenty to offer.
“I think I’m a guy that thinks the game really well and with the system here and the way they compete, the way they skate, it could lend itself to some success,” Gagner said.
And perhaps he does because Gagner is no stranger to the league.
The journeyman is a veteran of over 1,000 NHL games spread across 17 seasons and he’s produced over 500 points in that time.
There’s a lot that can be gleaned and learned from having had that much experience and that experience in turn lends itself to being in a position to know and accept any role you may be handed.
“I don’t think you worry too much about anything but playing hard and putting your best foot forward,” Gagner said. “I was presented with an opportunity here and I do feel like there’s an opportunity to maybe make the team, but my focus is just to come in every day and be the best I can be. Whatever end up happening, ends up happening. That’s where my focus is.”
While it’s an uphill road for sure, what’s true is that Gagner is going to give it his all.
Because in the end, that’s all he can control.
