Jaromír Jágr
Jaromír Jágr is a Czech professional ice hockey player who is a right winger and owner of Rytíři Kladno of the Czech Extraliga. He previously played in the National Hockey League for the Pittsburgh Penguins, Washington Capitals, New York Rangers, Philadelphia Flyers, Dallas Stars, Boston Bruins, New Jersey Devils, Florida Panthers and Calgary Flames, serving as captain of the Penguins from 1998 to 2001 and the Rangers between 2006 and 2008.
After leaving the Rangers in 2008, he played three seasons in the Kontinental Hockey League with Avangard Omsk. He returned to the NHL in 2011 with the Flyers and remained in the league for seven more years before being assigned by the Flames in 2018 to HC Kladno. Having played in 37 professional seasons and over 2,000 professional games, Jágr has had the longest playing career in professional ice hockey history. He is the most productive European player who has ever played in the NHL and is widely regarded as one of the greatest players ever.
Jágr has the second-most points in NHL history, after Wayne Gretzky. In 1990, at age 18, he was the youngest player in the NHL. Until his transfer, at age 45, he was the oldest player in the NHL and is the oldest player to record a hat-trick. In 2017, Jágr was named one of the 100 Greatest NHL Players in history.
Jágr was the fifth overall selection in the 1990 NHL entry draft. He won consecutive Stanley Cups in the 1991 and 1992 seasons with the Penguins. Individually, he has won the Art Ross Trophy as the NHL scoring champion five times, the Lester B. Pearson Award for the NHL's outstanding player as voted by the NHL Players' Association three times, and the Hart Memorial Trophy as the league's most valuable player once, in 1999, while finishing second four times.
Jágr is a member of the Triple Gold Club, individuals who have played for teams that have won the Stanley Cup, the Ice Hockey World Championships and the Olympic gold medal in ice hockey. Jágr is one of only two Czech players in the Club, achieving this feat in 2005. Jágr was the Czech Republic's flag bearer at the 2010 Winter Olympics. Jágr is also one of only three players from 1981 to 2001 to win the Art Ross Trophy as the leading point-scorer during the regular season; the others are Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux. Jágr has won the award more times than any other non-Canadian player. He has been a member of the Czech Ice Hockey Hall of Fame since 2008 and the IIHF Hall of Fame since 2024.
Playing career
Early career
Jágr began skating at age three, and he immediately showed exceptional abilities. At age 15, he played at the highest level of competition in Czechoslovakia for Poldi SONP Kladno. When he was 17, he became the youngest member of the Czechoslovakia national team.As a youth in his native country, he kept a photograph of American president Ronald Reagan in his school grade book as a protest against the policies of the Soviet Union.
Pittsburgh Penguins (1990–2001)
Jágr was the first Czechoslovak player to be drafted by the NHL without having to defect to the West; his selection in the NHL draft came as the Iron Curtain fell. Because of this, after Jágr was selected by the Pittsburgh Penguins with the fifth overall pick in the 1990 NHL entry draft, he was able to relocate to North America from Czechoslovakia immediately. When he attended the draft in Vancouver, he was the first Czechoslovak player present at the NHL draft with his government's blessings.Jágr was a supporting player with the powerhouse Penguins that won back-to-back Stanley Cups in 1991 and 1992. He was one of the youngest players in NHL history, at age 20, to score a goal in the Stanley Cup Finals.
Before he had a clear grasp of the English language, Jágr could be heard reading the daily weather forecast on Pittsburgh radio station WDVE in his broken, thickly-accented English. He and teammate Jiří Hrdina were promoted as the "Czechmates", a play on the term "checkmate" from chess. He also played Scrabble to increase his English vocabulary. Some Penguins fans realized that the letters in his first name could be scrambled to form the anagram "Mario Jr.", a reference to teammate Mario Lemieux.
In the 1994–95 season, Jágr won his first Art Ross Trophy after finishing the regular season with the most points in the NHL; he tied Eric Lindros with 70 points but won based on his 32 goals to Lindros' 29. Jágr set a record for most points, 149, by a European-born player the following year. His 62 goals and 87 assists from that season still stand as career highs. His 1995–96 totals for assists and points stand as the records for right-wingers in those categories. After the 1997–98 season, Penguins captain Ron Francis signed with the Carolina Hurricanes, leaving Jágr the Penguins' captaincy. From 1997–98 to 2000–01, Jágr would win four straight NHL scoring titles. In 1999, he would win the Hart Memorial Trophy as the NHL's most valuable player, as well as the Lester B. Pearson Award. In 1998, he led the Czech Republic to a gold medal at the 1998 Winter Olympics.
On 30 December 1999, against the New York Islanders, Jágr scored three goals and four assists for a career-high seven-point night. He would later match this feat on 11 January 2003 by once again scoring three goals and four assists in a game against the Florida Panthers as a member of the Washington Capitals.
In 2000–01, Jágr was struggling to find his scoring touch and faced criticisms about his relationship with Penguins head coach Ivan Hlinka. With the return of Mario Lemieux from retirement, the Penguins had two superstars, but friction developed between the two; Jágr continued to hold the captaincy for the rest of the season even after Lemieux returned, but many fans regarded Lemieux as the talisman of the team. Additionally, the struggling, medium-market Penguins could, with Lemieux back, no longer hope to afford Jágr's high salary. Thus, on 11 July 2001, the organization traded him, along with František Kučera, to the Washington Capitals in exchange for Kris Beech, Michal Sivek and Ross Lupaschuk.
In 806 games with Pittsburgh, Jágr became only the second player to score 1,000 points as a Penguin. Jágr sits second behind Lemieux in career goals in franchise history and third in games played, assists, and points, having since been surpassed by Sidney Crosby. His no. 68 jersey was eventually retired in a pregame ceremony on 18 February 2024, with Jágr becoming just the third Penguins player to receive the honour.
Washington Capitals (2001–2004)
Later in 2001, the Capitals signed Jágr to the then-largest contract in NHL history at $77 million over seven years, an average annual value of $11 million, with an option for an eighth year. However, Jágr did not live up to expectations in Washington, as the Capitals failed to defend their division title and missed the 2002 Stanley Cup playoffs. During his tenure with the Capitals, for the first time in his career Jágr failed to finish among the NHL's top scorers, help his team qualify for the Stanley Cup playoffs, or make the NHL All-Star team. During the summer of 2002, the Capitals reunited Jágr with former teammate Robert Lang. In 2002–03, Washington finished sixth overall in the Eastern Conference. Still, it lost to the upstart Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round of the 2003 playoffs despite winning the series' first two games.The lack of organizational success prompted the Capitals to unload much of their high-priced talent to save money—not just a cost-cutting spree, but also an acknowledgment that their attempt to build a contender with high-priced veteran talent had failed. Disgruntled, Washington ownership spent much of 2003 trying to trade Jágr. Still, a year before a new Collective Bargaining Agreement was to be signed, few teams were willing to risk $11 million on Jágr.
On 23 January 2004, Jágr was eventually traded to the New York Rangers in exchange for Anson Carter and an agreement that Washington would pay approximately $4 million per year of Jágr's salary. Jágr also agreed to defer $1 million per year for the remainder of his contract to allow the trade to go through.
New York Rangers (2004–2008)
Due to the new CBA signed before the start of the 2005–06 season, Jágr's salary was reduced to $7.8 million, the maximum allowed under the terms of the new salary cap.During the NHL labor dispute in 2004–05, he played for HC Kladno in the Czech Republic and, afterward, for Avangard Omsk in the Russian Superleague.
Jágr led the Czech Republic to gold at the 2005 World Hockey Championships in Austria and was elected a tournament all-star. He also became a member of hockey's prestigious Triple Gold Club, players who have won a Stanley Cup, a World Hockey Championship and an Olympic gold medal.
Before the 2005–06 season, the Rangers had missed the playoffs for seven consecutive seasons. Following the fire sale of the high-priced, underachieving veterans that made up the team's roster, many experts picked the Rangers to be the worst team in the NHL. Jágr disagreed and promised the team would surprise many people and make the Stanley Cup playoffs. He started strong during the beginning of the 2005 season and the return from the lockout of the NHL. He became only the fourth player in NHL history to score ten or more goals in less than ten games at the start of a season. His return to dominance helped the Rangers return to the Stanley Cup playoffs, but injuries to Jágr and others contributed to a four-game sweep in the first round by the New Jersey Devils.
Jágr scored his 1,400th point on a power-play goal against the Philadelphia Flyers on 2 March 2006, pushing him past Jari Kurri into second place all-time among European-born players. He later passed Stan Mikita to become the all-time leader.
On 18 March 2006, against the Toronto Maple Leafs, Jágr became only the sixth Rangers player in team history to break the 100-point barrier, and became the only Ranger right winger to score 100 points in a season.
On 27 March 2006, against the Buffalo Sabres, Jágr had a goal and an assist, which tied both the Rangers' single-season goal record of 52 and the Rangers' single-season points record of 109. Two nights later, on 29 March, Jágr passed Ratelle when he assisted on Petr Průcha's first-period goal against the New York Islanders' Rick DiPietro. On 8 April, against the Boston Bruins, Jágr scored his NHL-leading 53rd goal of the season, breaking the Rangers' single-season goals record.
After leading the NHL in points and goals for most of the 2005–06 season, Jágr was surpassed by the San Jose Sharks' duo of Joe Thornton and Jonathan Cheechoo, losing both the Art Ross and Maurice Richard trophies in the final week of the season. Jágr finished with 123 points, 54 goals, and 24 power-play goals, second in the NHL in all three categories. He also finished third in the NHL in both assists and plus-minus. However, just as in Washington, playoff success was not to be for Jágr, whose Rangers were swept in four games by New Jersey. In the series, he suffered a dislocated shoulder in the third period of the first game, which kept him from playing at his top form for the rest of the series. Jágr had surgery on the shoulder after the Rangers were eliminated from the playoffs.
Despite being inched out by Joe Thornton for the Art Ross Trophy and Hart Trophy, Jágr won his third Lester B. Pearson Award as the NHL's most outstanding player. During his acceptance speech for the Award, Jágr said, "With this award, you get voted on by players you play against every night, and I think they understand the game better than the media." He has been named to seven NHL first All-Star teams.
On 5 October 2006, before the first game of the 2006–07 season, Jágr was named as the 24th captain in the history of the New York Rangers, replacing Mark Messier, who had retired before the 2005–06 season. Jágr scored a goal on his first shift in the game, just under 30 seconds into the new season.
Jágr became the 16th player to score 600 career NHL goals on 19 November 2006 against Tampa Bay goaltender Johan Holmqvist. Power play linemate Brendan Shanahan had scored his 600th goal almost three weeks earlier, making them the first teammates in NHL history to score their 600th goal in the same season.
On 10 February 2007, against Washington, Jágr earned an assist on a goal by Michal Rozsíval to record his 1,500th career point. He is only the 12th NHLer to reach this mark and the fourth-fastest player to do so after Marcel Dionne, Mario Lemieux, and Wayne Gretzky.
On 5 April 2007, against the Montreal Canadiens, Jágr scored his 30th goal of the 2006–07 season, tying the NHL record held by Mike Gartner. Thus, Jágr has now scored 30 or more goals in 15 consecutive seasons.
After a regular season slowed by a weak shoulder, Jágr then led the New York Rangers to a sweep of the Atlanta Thrashers in the Eastern Conference quarterfinals, the Rangers would fall to the Buffalo Sabres in game 6 of the conference semifinals.
On 14 November 2007, against New Jersey, Jágr scored his fourth goal of the 2007–08 season at the Prudential Center in Newark, making him the first player to score a goal in 53 different NHL arenas.