When the New Jersey Devils played the Philadelphia Flyers on October 9th 2014, Jaromir Jagr was focused on winning the game. Maybe at the back of his head he knew he was only one point away from surpassing the great Steve Yzerman for sixth place in career NHL points, but Jagr still managed to do both.
He put up 2 assists in a 6-4 win for the Devils, giving him 1,757 points in 1,474 games.
Pretty amazing, right? You’d be hard pressed to find a fan of hockey that would not at least know of Jaromir Jagr. He is just that well known, his mullet may be more famous, but that’s another story.
Growing up, and watching the iconic #68 fly down the wing was pretty cool. It’s also hard to forget Jagr Peanut Butter; he was smooth on and off the ice. The Kladno, Czech Republic, native has a lot of skillsets, and speed is just one of them, along with a lethal shot, puck vision like no other, clean passes, and a big, strong body to go with it.
The ageless freak (and I mean that in a good way) is just built to play hockey. He has a superior workout routine, regularly in the gym and skating at night and day. He is like the Duracell Battery Bunny, he just never stops. His career is pretty much the same.
Jagr is one of the last links to the early 1990s, having first played for the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1990-91, racking up 27 goals and 57 points in 80 games as a rookie and from then on, he just got even better. The former 5th overall pick is a dominating force on the ice, and can take control of the game in no time. His stats show just how powerful and valuable he is to any team, not just back when he was 20 to 30, but even now at 42 years old, he can still make defenders sweat nervously when they see the Mullet flying.
Jagr has so many league and team records (he holds or shares 18 NHL records, 31 Pittsburgh records, and 6 New York Rangers records) that you could literally write an article just on that, so we won’t go into too much detail, but there are impressive records set by him. His numbers spanning over a 23-year period are incredible, he hit a career-high of 62 goals and 149 points in 95-96, (he finished second to Mario Lemieux for the Art Ross that year and was also the only Penguin to play a full season).
His advanced stats are also unreal. Starting in 2002-03, then going to the KHL for three seasons (starting in 2008-09 and returning in 2011-12), he has posted a CF% above 52, with the lone exception of the 2003-04 season when his CF% was 50.7. He is just an offensive juggernaut. Since 02-03 he created no less than 0.6 G/60, averaged 1.5 or more A/60, and consistently notched 2.0 or more P/60. While these advanced stats only started tracking in 02-03, it is a no brainer to assume that his advanced stats would be similar or even better since 90-91.
Jagr is now in sole possession of sixth place in in all-time career points, seventh in goals with 705, and eighth in assists with 1,052. He is also 19th overall in games played with 1,474. The two-time Stanley Cup champion, both with the Penguins, has played in 202 playoffs games and has recorded 199 points (fifth all-time).
He has won the Ted Lindsay (1999, 2000, 2006), the Hart (1999), and the Art Ross (1995, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001) and has been on the NHL First All-Star Team seven times. He is currently 15 points away from usurping Marcel Dionne as fifth overall in points, and it is conceivable that he could take fourth overall this season, being only 41 points behind Ron Francis, his longtime former team mate in Pittsburgh. Jagr hit 67 points in 2013-14 in 82 games with the Devils, so it shouldn’t be hard for the Jagr-meister to notch that and cement his place as one of the greatest to play the game.
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