Jaromir Jagr, Rangers’ top single-season scorer, intends to retire: report
Jaromir Jagr was 36 when he concluded his three-season stint with the New York Rangers in 2008, two years after setting team records for goals and points in a season. Sixteen years later, he’s reportedly ready to finally hang up his skates.
The No. 2 scorer in NHL history told Rob Rossi of the Athletic by telephone Thursday that he intends to retire after the current Czech Extraliga season ends – by which time he’ll be 53.
Jagr’s last game in the NHL came when he played for the Calgary Flames against the Chicago Blackhawks on Dec. 31, 2017. The native of Czechia then returned to his home country and has been playing with HC RytÃri Kladno, his hometown team – which he also owns. He had an assist in Kladno’s first game of the season on Wednesday.
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Hall of Fame is next stop for Jaromir Jagr after retirement
His time playing for Kladno prevented Jagr from being inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, though he’s been out of the NHL for nearly seven years. Unless the Hall waives its three-year minimum requirement after retirement, which hasn’t happened since Wayne Gretzky in 1999, the earliest he could be inducted is 2028.
With 1,921 points (766 goals, 1,155 assists) in 1,766 games since entering the NHL with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1990-91, Jagr is fourth in games played and goals, fifth in assists – and has more points than anyone in League history not named Gretzky. Of those totals, 277 games, 124 goals, 195 assists and 319 points came with the Rangers, who acquired him in a trade with the Washington Capitals on Jan. 23, 2004.
By that time, he had already helped the Penguins win the Stanley Cup in his first two NHL seasons, won the Hart Trophy as league MVP in 2000-01, the Lester B. Pearson Award (now the Ted Lindsay Award, given to the most outstanding player as voted by his peers) twice, and the Art Ross Trophy as the League’s top scorer five times – including four in a row from 1998-98 through 2000-01.
But his last great seasons came with the Rangers, beginning in 2005-06.
New coach Tom Renney put Jagr on right wing with center Michael Nylander and left wing Martin Straka (a teammate from his days in Pittsburgh), and the three took off. Jagr led the NHL in scoring for most of the season, though a late surge by Joe Thornton of the San Jose Sharks cost him his sixth Art Ross Trophy — and likely the Hart Trophy as well (he finished second in both). But after setting Rangers records that still stand with 54 goals and 123 points (the fifth and final 100-point season of his career), his peers honored him with the Pearson Award for the third time, and he was voted an NHL First-Team All-Star for the seventh and final time in his career.
Jagr and his linemates helped carry the Rangers to the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time since 1997-98, though a shoulder injury sidelined him for much of their playoff series against the New Jersey Devils.
He continued to pile up points in 2006-07, finishing with 96 (30 goals, 66 assists) and helped the Rangers qualify for the playoffs again. He had 11 points (five goals, six assists) in 11 postseason games, and they won a series for the first time in 10 years before losing to Chris Drury and the Buffalo Sabres in the Eastern Conference Semifinals.
Jagr’s offensive numbers dropped off in 2007-08 after Nylander left as a free agent, but he still led the Rangers with 71 points (25 goals, 46 assists) and topped them in the postseason with 15 points (five goals, 10 assists), when the Rangers defeated the Devils in five games before losing to the Penguins in five in the conference semis.
Related: How Artemi Panarin stacks up against Jaromir Jagr in Rangers history
Jagr intends to retire in 2025, 17 years after leaving Rangers
However, Jagr became a free agent in the summer of 2008, and when no NHL team gave him the three-year contract he reportedly wanted, the 36-year-old signed with Avangard Omsk of the KHL, the team he’d played with during the 2004-05 NHL lockout. He spent three seasons in the KHL before returning to the NHL with the Philadelphia Flyers for the 2011-12 season.
Jagr played all of that season with the Flyers before spending the rest of his NHL career bouncing around the League. He was never the offensive force he’d been before his stint in the KHL but scored as many as 27 goals (with the Florida Panthers in 2015-16, when the 43-year-old helped them finish first in their division) and 67 points with the New Jersey Devils in 2013-14.
The Rangers won’t retire his No. 68 as the Penguins did in February, but he’s still second in Rangers history among those who dressed for 200 or more games with an average of 1.15 points per game. The only player ahead of him is Artemi Panarin, who got within three points (120) of Jagr’s single-season team record last season.
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