Penguins and hockey legend Jaromir Jagr expected to retire following this season
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - When professional hockey leagues drop the puck next October for the 2025-26 season, it will likely be without one of the giants of the game.
For the first time since the 1988-89 season, Jaromir Jagr will not be playing professional hockey.
According to multiple reports, as well as a post on Jagr's Instagram page, he plans to retire at the conclusion of this season for his hometown team Kladno.
For 37 years, Jagr has been playing professional hockey either in Czechia, North America, or Russia.
When Kladno opened the season in Czech Extraliga on Wednesday, the 52-year-old Jagr recorded an assist.
Jagr & The Pittsburgh Penguins
Jaromir Jagr's journey to the National Hockey League is the stuff of legend.
Drafted fifth overall by the Penguins in 1990, Jagr was reported to have told the four teams ahead of the Penguins that year - Quebec, Vancouver, Detroit, and Philadelphia that he wouldn't come to North America right away, opting to stay for at least one more season in then Czechoslovakia.
However, when interviewed by Penguins General Manager Craig Patrick, he told them he'd come over right away, mainly for the chance to play with his hero, Penguins captain Mario Lemieux.
"When we interviewed him, he said, 'I'll come right away,' because he idolized Mario Lemieux and he wanted to play with the Penguins," said Craig Patrick, in an interview earlier this year. "So, he kind of lied to everybody else, and he was left open for us to pick."
The Penguins took the chance and drafted Jagr, and he reported to the team that year, helping them win the franchise's first Stanley Cup in the 1990-91 season.
He would go on to play 11 seasons for the Penguins scoring 439 goals, 640 assists, and 1,079 points across 806 games. In those years he also would be team captain, win two Stanley Cups, and win the Art Ross Trophy as the league's top scorer five times, including four straight years from 1998-99 to 2000-2001.
Unfortunately, due to declining revenue and other factors, Jagr would be traded to the rival Washington Capitals on July 11, 2001.
The Reunion That Never Was...Until It Was
Jagr would leave the NHL at the conclusion of the 2007-08 season, fittingly after Sidney Crosby's young Penguins would eliminate his New York Rangers from the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
He would go on to play in Czechia as well as Russia and it appeared his National Hockey League days were finished, leaving only the question of when would he retire and enter the Hockey Hall of Fame.
For 17 seasons with the Penguins, Rangers, and Capitals, Jagr played 1,273 games and scored 646 goals, 953 assists, and 1,599 points. Add in two Stanley Cup championships, multiple scoring titles, and MVP seasons, he appeared to be a lock for the Hall of Fame.
Then, prior to the 2011-12 season, reports began to surface that Jagr was eyeing a return to the NHL.
As the Penguins were experiencing a renaissance with Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, Jordan Staal, and Marc-Andre Fleury, it appeared a reunion was imminent. A living legend would join a new generation of superstars and usher in more championships.
It also appeared that he was ready to heal old wounds and return to the city he loved so much.
Instead, the wound only grew deeper as he ultimately chose to sign with the interstate rival Philadelphia Flyers. He would sign a one-year $3.3 million deal with the Flyers and to make matters worse, the Flyers would go on to eliminate the Penguins in the first round of the 2012 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Jagr would then bounce around the NHL, playing for the Boston Bruins, Dallas Stars, Florida Panthers, and Calgary Flames before ultimately returning to Czechia and playing for his hometown club Kladno.
However, absence and time only make the heart grow fonder.
This past season, the Penguins and Jagr began to repair their relationship and that culminated with a jersey retirement ceremony in February that made his iconic number 68 only the third number in team history to be retired. Jagr joins Mario Lemieux's number 66 and Michel Briere's 21 in the rafters of PPG Paints Arena.
A Call To The Hall
While Jaromir Jagr has already been inducted into the International Ice Hockey Federation Hall of Fame for his storied career on the international stage, he has yet to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
That's because the Hockey Hall of Fame requires players to be retired to be eligible for induction. Then, three years following the player's retirement, they can be inducted into the hall.
It appears to be all but a foregone conclusion that Jagr will be immortalized in the Hockey Hall of Fame. A 24-year NHL career saw Jagr win two Stanley Cups, four MVP awards, five scoring titles, and 766 goals and 1,921 points all point to enshrinement.
Now, the question is when it will happen.
While he appears set to retire at the end of this season, he would become eligible for induction in 2028. However, many people believe he could join the only two players who have ever had the three-year waiting period waived.
Those two were The Great One Wayne Gretzky and his boyhood idol Mario Lemieux.
What a storybook ending it would be to an already magical career.