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Lightning Round: A final salute for Jaromir Jagr

Feb 18, 2024; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA; Pittsburgh Penguins former right wing Jaromir Jagr (left) looks on during a ceremony to retire his jersey number at PPG Paints Arena. The Penguins host the Los Angeles Kings after the ceremony. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

On Sunday, the Pittsburgh Penguins finally retired Jaromir Jagr’s #68. Almost twenty-three years after he was traded to the Washington Capitals for Kris Beech, Ross Lupaschuk, and Michal Sivek, the 51-year-old returned to the ‘Burgh and put on the Black and Gold one more time.

It wasn’t the greatest end to an absolutely spectacular era of hockey in Pittsburgh for Jagr. For those that may not know, in the early 2000s, the Penguins had fallen far from the heights of success they had achieved in the prior decade. They were literally broke and rumors of a relocation to Kansas City were swirling. Jagr didn’t want to go, but he also knew that they couldn’t pay him what he was worth when he next contract came up. He let general manager Craig Patrick know that he wanted to be traded.

In the summer of 2001, the deal with the Capitals was struck, and Jagr was buried in the press. He didn’t help things out 10 years later when he had a chance to sign with the Penguins, but chose the Flyers instead. That led to his being lustfully booed every time he stepped on the ice in an opponent’s uniform.

There were no boos on Sunday when he stepped onto the ice and joined the Penguins for their warm-up skate. Why was he skating with the team? Because he’ll be skating on ice rinks long after we’re all dead and buried.

Yes, those are mullets that some of the Pens put on in honor of the future hall-of-famer.

With a little more grey in his hair, but he still looked like he could wheel off the half-boards and snap a wrister top-shelf to, in the words of Mike Lange, smoke a goalie like a bad cigar.

Jagr was one of the truly great Penguins, recording 1079 points (439 goals and 640 assists) in 806 career games with the Pens while raising the Stanley Cup with them twice. Those are hall-of fame numbers by themself. Of course, he would play another 927 games with various teams throughout the rest of his NHL career, finishing up with 1921 points (166 goals, 1155 assists). We assume he’s finished in the NHL, but you never know. After all he added four assists to his worldwide total as he played 15 games for his hometown Kladno Knights this season.

At some point he is likely to stop playing long enough for the Hockey Hall of Fame to actually induct him.

With all of the accolades that he received over the weekend, how much credit should the Lightning get in helping him with his historic career? Honestly, not as much as you might think. His stat line against the Lightning is good, but not necessarily great:

80 games played, 36 goals, 47 assists, 83 points

Again, pretty good stats, good enough for an All-Star spot, but not quite Hart Level production. There are five franchises he has more than 100 points against. For the record he does rank second all-time in points against the Lightning, behind only Alex Ovechkin’s 95. Ovechkin (50) and Peter Bondra (41) are the only players ahead of him in goals scored against the Lightning.

As a Penguin, he only played 33 games against the Bolts, but did put up 39 points (20 goals, 19 assists). As a Penguin he did have four 3-point games against the Lightning and three two-goal games.

He did record one hat trick against the Lightning, but it came in a Washington Capitals uniform on February 4th, 2003. In the 5-1 Washington win, Jagr scored the first three goals of the game and then assisted on Peter Bondra’s goal against John Grahame (who was chased in the second period) and Nikolai Khabibulin. Freddie Modin had the lone Lightning goal.

It was as a Capital that he had his only series against the Lightning as well. In the Bolts 4-2 series win in the opening round of the 2003 playoffs, Jagr put up 7 points (2 goals, 5 assists). Four of those points game in a 6-3 Capitals win in Game 5 to stave off elimination. However, he was held off the scoreboard in the decisive Game 6, a 2-1 triple-overtime win for the Lightning.

In a totally unrelated note in the NHL ’93 games that I played against my college roommate I believe he scored roughly 875 goals. The Lightning were not great in that game. The Penguins were.

Congratulations to Mr. Jagr. It was good to see you back in the place where you became a superstar.

Other hockey news

Explanation of the Coach’s challenge from the NHL [NHL.com]

Missed putting this in the recap from Saturday’s game, but the league did provide an explanation as to why the Panthers’ fourth goal was not overturned despite obvious contact with Andrei Vasilevskiy’s glove. According to the league, while Vasy himself was in the crease, the incidental contact was made outside of it and therefore allowed. Cool.

Noah Hanifin top trade target [Flames Nation]

He’s long been rumored to be on the block, but his market should really heat up now that he has reportedly informed the Flames that he will be testing the free agent market this summer. While he would be an ideal fit for the Bolts, do they have the leverage to outbid other teams (cough, Leafs, cough) who need help on the blueline? Guess we’ll have to stay tuned.

Rangers comeback to win Stadium Series game [Blue Shirt Banter]

Tough loss for the Islanders. Great win for the Rangers. And it was in front of 79,600 people. That’s a lot of people. The total attendance for both games at Giants’ Stadium was 150,018.

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