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Is the Rangers' Jaromir Jagr ready to step up and replace the retired Mark Messier as the new face and leader of the Franchise?
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Back on top in a
New York minute
By Larry Wigge | NHL.com columnist
Jan. 17, 2006
Quick wrist shot, short side from the right-wing faceoff circle.
Goal!
How fitting that Jaromir Jagr would end a game 14 seconds into overtime, giving the New York Rangers a 5-4 victory over the Edmonton Oilers on the night that Mark Messier's No. 11 was raised to the rafters at Madison Square Garden. Same off-the-wrong-foot trademark wrist shot that Messier made famous.
Some suggested that the surreal meaning was that the face of the Rangers from one era was sort of passing the torch to the face of the new Rangers. Face to face? Hmmm.
The only difference is that Jagr had a smile on his face before the puck went past Oilers goalie Ty Conklin. It would have taken Messier a moment or two to erase that competitive icy glare of his before he smiled.
The wide smile on Jagr's face is the tip-off, because Jaromir is still a kid at heart, even if he's closing in on his 34th birthday on Feb. 15.
No one ever questioned Messier's ability to lead, having won five Stanley Cups in Edmonton, before he helped the Rangers win a Cup in 1994, the team's first since 1940. Jagr? He has two Stanley Cup rings from his first two years in Pittsburgh when was 1b to Mario Lemieux's 1a. But "Jags" hasn't come close since.
Coming into this season, there were a lot of people who didn't think that Jagr would ever revive his career after two-plus seasons of underachieving. But you never underestimate the heart of a champion, five-time scoring champion and NHL Most Valuable Player.
"Jags never lost his appetite to play this game at a high level, but the last few years he was in a losing situation and teams would go out there and tackle him to take him off his game," Penguins winger Mark Recchi told me earlier this season. "He's still like a shark out there looking for blood, an opportunist just like he was during all of those 40-goal, 100-point seasons when he was in Pittsburgh.
"With the way the rules are today and no one able to put a hand or stick on a forward going to the net, this is the same Jags that could dominate with his size and skill."
After the Jan. 12 game-winning goal against the Oilers, Jagr had 28 goals and 39 assists in 44 games and overtook Atlanta's Ilya Kovalchuk for the NHL's scoring lead. If you're into stats, that's just seven points less than he had in all of 2003-04 when he split the season with the Washington Capitals and Rangers.
I've interviewed "the Jagrmeister" a lot since he broke into the NHL as a naive youngster living life in the fast lane in Pittsburgh in 1990-91 - where he got to know members of the State Police with his fast cars and fun, fun, fun. Plus, he had those long black trademark locks of his and a highlight-reel goal in which he beat every Chicago Blackhawks player on the ice -- a couple of them twice -- before sending Game 1 of the 1992 Stanley Cup Finals into overtime.
At his best, the smiling Jagr was one of the top two or three players in the NHL in the 1990s. At worst, for the past five or six years some considered him a high-salaried, pouting, underachiever who could be a considered a coach killer.
But the best stories have always been the ones filled with conflicts, complex individuals and high expectations. Consider this one: Jagr could have been smiling and scoring all of his goals back home in the Czech Republic this season, if not for the Rangers taking his huge contract off the hands of the Capitals on Jan. 23, 2004 for Anson Carter in what now looks like a lopsided trade for the Rangers.
Penguins winger Mark Recchi
comments on Jaromir Jagr:
"He's still like a shark out there looking for blood, an opportunist just like he was during all of those 40-goal, 100-point seasons when he was in Pittsburgh."
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I learned that little nugget about Jagr and a potential return to the Czech Republic in December, when I had a brief one-on-one with "the Jagrmeister" after he helped the Rangers beat the Blues in St. Louis, 5-4, in overtime, by contributing two goals and two assists.
"I wasn't sure which Jaromir Jagr I would run into after the game," I asked afterward.
"I know," Jagr said, with an even bigger smile. "I've been kind of like ..."
"Jekyll and Hyde?" I interrupted.
"Yeah," he said. "When I'm not having fun, I guess I'm not so good all the time."
"The smile tells the story now, eh?" I asked.
Jagr nodded and said, "When I was playing my best in Pittsburgh, I guess I was like a kid playing a kid's game. Then I got older. Then I was traded to Washington ... and the fun was gone for a while.
"Then I went to New York. It was like I had a new life ... even if a lot of the guys I joined were gone at the end of the 2003-04 season like Alexei Kovalev, Petr Nedved, Jussi Markkanen, Brian Leetch."
From the outside looking in, the purges of the lowly Rangers and Capitals didn't look much different. The Rangers also traded Chris Simon, Matthew Barnaby and Greg deVries at the end of 2003-04 and Mark Messier retired before this season. However, Jagr said the Caps were gutting their team while the Rangers were reloading while letting a lot of young farm system players get their feet wet.
Forget that the Rangers came into this season without having made the playoffs in seven seasons, says Jagr.
"If I hadn't been traded to the Rangers in 2003-04, I would be playing in the Czech Republic now," he told me, no ifs, ands or buts about it. "While I wasn't sure about who would be playing alongside me in New York, I got to know (coach) Tom Renney and his plan for me and the team. And I got excited, because he told me he wanted to play an up-tempo game, use four lines, play a lot of kids with a hard-nosed attitude."
Fast forward to early December and this night in St. Louis where the suddenly up-tempo Rangers were on top of the Atlantic Division. The Rangers may have squeaked by the woeful Blues, but they found a way to win and Jagr and linemates Martin Rucinsky and Michael Nylander were all over the scoring sheet in a 5-4 overtime victory.
"It's one thing to beat a guy, but if you don't finish it's not the same threat. These rules definitely have rejuvenated Jaromir's career," Blues coach Mike Kitchen said.
"He has unbelievable hands and he boy can he skate," Rangers linemate Martin Straka said. "He reacts to what he sees as opposed to deciding immediately what he's going to do. And by that time you've given him time and space you didn't want him to have."
"The only way to stop him now is to wrap your arms around him -- and you can't do that," Red Wings defenseman Chris Chelios, who was lucky not to be one of those Blackhawks that Jagr left in his skate dust back in the 1992 Finals.
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"If I hadn't been traded to the Rangers in 2003-04, I would be playing in the Czech Republic now," -- Jaromir Jagr
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Critics of the Jagr acquisition and those who wondered which Jaromir would show up this season have seen that this isn't just another attempt to put a high-profile star onto an unlimited payroll at Madison Square Garden. In fact, in this salary-cap era, Jagr is well worth the $7.8 million he makes.
Jagr has been known to help diagram plays during Rangers team meetings. He goes out to lift weights at 10:30 at night. A true team player. In the process, he has breathed life into an organization that has been trying for years to restore its good name. All because Jaromir liked the game plan Renney spoke of back in the spring of 2004.
"He is the best coach I ever played for," Jagr said.
But Jags, what about Scotty Bowman, Bob Johnson and Herb Brooks?
"I've played for a lot of good coaches," Jagr continued. "Some pretty smart coaches. But some were not nice guys. Tom's got the whole combination. He can talk to us. He can motivate us."
Coach killer? Not now, although some wondered if Renney was in danger when this season began with a mystery super star.
"It's like living on the edge," Jagr smiled. "I was like that all my life. Unpredictable. They can love you, they can hate you. There's no in between."
All brilliant performers, be they actors or rock stars or athletes, bring admirers and detractors. Jagr agrees he can be moody because he's a perfectionist who can get down when things don't go his way.
"Life is a game," Jagr told me. "When I was a little kid, I always dreamed of being the best player at every game I played. I'm still working at it."
Working at it? Jaromir Jagr has the uncanny ability to see the ice and always remain cool and poised. It's like the game slows down for him, and then -- bang -- a big play.
Like when he scored that trademark Mark Messier goal -- and for some Rangers' fans helped bridge the Messier era in New York to today's team ... at least a little.
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