Billed as a gritty fourth-line type, he provided fourth-line grit. Billed as someone not afraid to drop the gloves when the need arose, he ranked among the league leaders in fighting majors all season. Billed as someone who jumped headfirst into his new team’s community, he won the Yanick Dupre award as the AHL’s Man of the Year in the community.
If there was an area where he did have more of an impact than perhaps anticipated, it was as a leader on what ended up being a very young team. It started somewhat quietly as he did the little things on the ice, such as blocking shots, playing hurt and sticking up for teammates, and off the ice, such as taking rookies grocery shopping. It ended with a deserved letter on his sweater as one of the team’s alternate captains.
“Just a true character and true leader,” said Jeff Daniels, his coach in Charlotte during the past season. “He came to the rink every day wanting to get better and never complained whether he was playing five or six minutes or 12 or 13 minutes. He was ready on the bench and willing to do whatever he could to help the team.”
“I think that’s part of the job that I really enjoy and embrace,” said Hagel of leadership. “These kids are easy. They wanted to be around and they wanted to learn and they wanted to improve and get better. It just made it easy to step into that type of role.”
“I would absolutely love to come back and I expressed that in my meetings,” said Hagel, referring to his postseason talks with Checkers coaches and Hurricanes management. “Hopefully we can work something out to make that happen. I love Charlotte and I love this group of guys. I definitely, 100 percent would love to come back.”
Though Daniels will not be involved in that decision since the Hurricanes announced he would be leaving the organization recently, his feelings on Hagel would likely be shared by other coaches accustomed to working with less experienced players at the AHL level.
“You want those character type of guys around players,” said Daniels. “You want guys that know what it takes to be a pro, how to win and how to prepare both on and off the ice. Off the ice is just as important at this level because guys come in thinking they’ve got it all figured out but then they’ll see Hags up in the weight room before practice, after practice and after a game. It’s kind of an eye opener for those guys. Those guys are just as important as guys that score 30 or 40 goals.”
Though the exact nature of the Checkers’ roster can’t be accurately predicted this far ahead of time, the team could likely use someone of Hagel’s qualities, namely his leadership and willingness to protect a continuing influx of young skill players. That’s where the majority of his team-leading 154 penalty minutes, actually the lowest total of his five full AHL seasons, and 22 fighting majors came from, as he rarely went looking for trouble or put his team at a disadvantage the way other “enforcer” types might. He took only eight penalties, all minors, that resulted in a shorthanded situation for the Checkers all season.
Though offense was never expected of him, even on a team heavily challenged in that department all season, he’s hoping to chip in a little more of that down the road as well. He finished the season with two goals in 73 games.
“I’m going to spend a lot of extra time just on a small sheet of ice trying to work on my hands in tight,” said Hagel of his offseason plans, which also included some power skating practice. “I feel like I had a lot of chances this year that I probably could have buried, and I want to capitalize on a few more of those. I think if I would have scored four or five more goals I would have felt really good about the season, and those goals were there for the taking.”
He otherwise has few regrets about his first season in Charlotte, which is part of why he hopes to have a second.
“Obviously I would have loved to make the playoffs, but I don’t know how disappointing it really was with the group that we had,” he said. “Our group battled hard and there were so many games we could have won. I think that we didn’t quite reach the potential of what our group had to offer but we almost did.
“Some of these guys that are going to be the core of this team and probably the core of the Hurricanes in a few years are just growing up. They got some good experience this year which means they’ll be even better next year. It’s definitely a bright side to look at.”
