Jaromir Jagr
Jaromir Jagr
Jaromír Jágr; born February 15, 1972) is a Czech professional ice hockey right winger currently playing for the Florida Panthers of the National Hockey League. He has formerly played in the NHL with the Pittsburgh Penguins, Washington Capitals, New York Rangers, Philadelphia Flyers, Dallas Stars, Boston Bruins and New Jersey Devils, serving as captain of the Penguins and the Rangers. After leaving the Rangers, he played for three seasons in the Kontinental Hockey Leaguewith Avangard Omsk before returning to the...
NationalityCzechoslovakian
ProfessionHockey Player
Date of Birth15 February 1972
CityKladno, Czech Republic
In international competition, you're facing the best players on every line. I think the Olympics is tougher for the goalie. I've got a lot of confidence in the way he plays. This is the least concern in my mind right now.
It's not a good situation that we are in. Everybody knows how important these next four games are at home. It might be our season. That's the way I look at it. I thought we started playing better in the last two games. It's just that the results are not there.
Everybody says your health is the most important thing, and he's a perfect example. If he would have been healthy, he would break a lot of records. Maybe not all of them, but I'm pretty sure a lot of them. He was the best player I've ever seen. He was the most gifted at everything - size, strength, skill, how smart he was. There is no other player like him.
It was huge. We haven't played very well lately. But I'm happy we found a way to win.
It was great for the New York fans and all the hockey fans. If you're a player like Mark and play so many years in the NHL and did so much for hockey he truly deserved it. He brought the Cup here to New York in 1994 and the people love him, so he deserved it.
They won the game for us, that's for sure. They had three or four power plays, then five-on-three. The one thing is they don't score, plus they were using their top players and getting frustrated, too.
I'm glad they did it because we can learn. Something might happen in the playoffs and we have to learn from that -- how to handle that.
Sure, he does. So does every other veteran player and the coaching staff.
It was a playoff game. If we're going to play each other in the playoffs, the games are going to look a lot like that.
It used to be much worse. It's been four years, but it is more special because we're playing a very good team tonight. It's not so much that it came against Pittsburgh, but it's more about how we're playing as a team.
First of all, when I was making the decision, I never thought that Pittsburgh fans would want me back. Every time I played there, they were booing me every time I touched the puck. I didn't think it would be such a big deal that I didn't sign with Pittsburgh.
We've had such a great year and we don't want to give it away. Why? It just happened. We're not happy with the way we played. We have to play better in the playoffs and we have two games to go to get us there.
You have to play the game to feel how well you're playing. You know sooner or later you're going to come back. We were down two goals because we were making mistakes, not because we were playing poorly, and it almost cost us the game.
To me, it was fast, too. But that's the way it's going to be. I think it's going to be even faster when the players get into shape. Don't forget they didn't play for a year. So heads up.