Starting with the 1970-71 season, the National Hockey League Players’ Association presented an award at the end of each season to the “most outstanding player as voted by fellow members of the NHLPA.”
Since the inception of the award – which was first known as the Lester B. Pearson Award and renamed the Ted Lindsay Award in 2009-10 – three Rangers players have earned the honor. The first was Jean Ratelle in 1971-72, when he tallied 109 points in 63 games before his season ended prematurely due to a broken bone in his ankle. The second was Mark Messier in 1991-92, when, in his first season as a Ranger, he registered 107 points and helped the team finish the regular season with the best record in the NHL.
And the third was Jaromir Jagr in 2005-06, when he established several single-season franchise records and helped usher in a new era of hockey and success for the Blueshirts.
The work stoppage that canceled the 2004-05 NHL season and the subsequent rule changes adopted for the 2005-06 season created the feeling that when the league returned to play in the fall of 2005, it would be a “new NHL.”
For the Rangers, there was also a very real feeling that everything was new with the organization as it entered the 2005-06 season.
“We had lots of time to plan for that season,” recalled Don Maloney, who at that time was the Rangers’ vice president of player personnel and assistant general manager. “We knew we had Jagr as a star, so we had to get players who could play with Jagr.”
A bevy of shrewd signings helped maximize the potential of Jagr and the Blueshirts. In the summer of 2004, the Rangers signed Michael Nylander, a skilled, playmaking center who had been teammates with Jagr when the two played for the Washington Capitals. Shortly after the work stoppage ended, the Blueshirts signed Martin Straka – a Czech left winger who had played with Jagr for several seasons with the Pittsburgh Penguins – as a free agent. The Rangers also brought in Czech defensemen Marek Malik and Michal Rozsival during the summer of 2005 to add veterans to their defense corps; Jagr and Rozsival had been teammates with the Penguins, while Jagr and Malik had both been on the Czech Republic’s team at the 2004 World Cup of Hockey.
Before the 2005-06 season began, most pundits did not predict that the Rangers would make the playoffs. The Blueshirts, however, won their regular season opener on October 5, 2005, as they rallied in the third period to defeat the Philadelphia Flyers, 5-3, in Philadelphia, as Jagr scored the game-tying goal and eventual game-winning goal.
Playing primarily alongside Straka and Nylander – a trio that would stay together for the majority of two seasons – Jagr posted a 12-game point streak from the fourth game of the regular season through early November in which he registered 12 goals and seven assists for 19 points. Near the end of the month, he recorded four consecutive multi-point games, leading the Rangers to victories in each contest as the team began a six-game winning streak. By the end of the month, the Rangers were in first place in the Atlantic Division.
There were many exciting things happening for the Rangers in 2005-06. Henrik Lundqvist’s arrival and early-season success energized fans. The “stick salute” tradition – which began following the Rangers’ unforgettable 15-round shootout win on November 26, 2005, in which Malik scored an improbable goal on a between-the-legs shot – added another connection between players and ‘The Garden Faithful’ to punctuate Rangers wins at MSG. And Jagr’s torrid scoring pace was right at the top of the list.
Jagr’s offensive impact also rubbed off on several of his teammates. One of those players was Petr Prucha, a 23-year-old Czech forward who was in his rookie season in 2005-06. Jagr took Prucha under his wing, helping his game on the ice while also easing his transition to North America and New York away from the rink. Prucha scored 30 goals during that season, with 16 coming on the power play – and of those 16 power play goals, 11 were assisted by Jagr.
As a result of the new rule changes that were in effect, more penalties were called throughout the league. For Jagr, this meant that he was able to use his size to his advantage even more, and if teams wanted to try to slow him down by holding him, he and the Rangers would have the opportunity to capitalize on the power play. And they did.
Positioned primarily at the right circle on the power play, Jagr’s wrist shot or one-time shot became nearly impossible for NHL goaltenders to stop. This was never more evident than 10-game stretch between the end of January and the beginning of March (which included a break for the 2006 Winter Olympics), when Jagr scored 13 goals in the 10-game span, and eight of the 13 were with the man-advantage.
As the regular season reached its final month, “M-V-P!” chants became commonplace at MSG, as The Garden Faithful serenaded Jagr for his outstanding performances. And late in the season, he began to break several single-season franchise records.
On March 29, 2006, in a game against the Islanders at Nassau Coliseum, Jagr tallied his 110th point of the season to break Ratelle’s single-season franchise record. On April 8, 2006, in a game against the Bruins in Boston, he scored his 53rd goal of the season, breaking Adam Graves’ single-season Blueshirts record.
When the season ended, Jagr established new single-season franchise records for goals (54), points (123), power play goals (24), and shots on goal (368), and he tied the single-season franchise record for game-winning goals (nine). He finished the season two goals and two points shy of the NHL lead in each category, ranked second in the league in shots on goal, and was among the top-five players in the league in assists (69) and game-winning goals.
Although Jagr’s tenure with the Rangers was relatively short (three and a half seasons), the record-breaking season he had in 2005-06 and the impact he made in helping the team return to the Stanley Cup Playoffs highlight his legacy in red, white, and blue.
