Jaromir Jagr’s Penguins teammates recall when they realized they were playing with a legend-to-be
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You didn’t have to know much about hockey — or frankly sports in general — to be able to tell that Jaromir Jagr was different. That he was dynamically gifted at his craft. That he wasn’t just going to be great, but that he was an all-timer.
The locker room that Jagr was drafted into in Pittsburgh was caked with those kinds of players. Between coaches, players and general managers, Jagr played with 15 Hall of Famers while in Pittsburgh alone, not to mention numerous other All-Stars.
Those guys can be a discerning lot with a high bar for praise. None other than Mario Lemieux was the highest point of comparison of the entire group.
So as the Penguins prepare to honor Jagr by hoisting his No. 68 jersey into the rafters alongside Lemieux’s, I asked a number of his former teammates for the first time they realized Jagr’s level of greatness.
• Kevin Stevens (Jagr’s teammate in Pittsburgh 1990-95, 2001): “I think it just came in practice. More in practice than games. You could just tell how big and strong and dominant he was.
“He was different, just a different feel to him. Everybody comes in and has their own way to play. Right off the bat, he had that kind of aura about him. He was big. He had the long hair. Being able to skate like he could skate. How he handled the puck. He skated upright and was so strong.
“I think that’s the biggest thing with Jaromir. He had so many different weapons, but his strength. On the puck, with the puck, just how he handled the puck down low in front of the net and behind the net.
“Mario was very strong on the puck. Once he had had it out in front of you, you couldn’t get it off of him. And Jaromir was the same way. Once he used his body, it was unbelievable. He positioned himself in ways to make him better down low. People couldn’t get inside him. I don’t care how big and strong you were. Playing against him in practice you just can’t get inside, until the last day he played. His game might have slowed down. But his strength never did.”
• Peter Taglianetti (Jagr’s teammate in Pittsburgh 1990-92, 93-95): “His rookie season in the playoffs (1991) against the Devils (Game 2, Patrick Division semifinals). He broke in on the righthand side, cut across and beat Chris Terreri. The way he was able to go full speed and just cut and hold off everybody with his body.
“The things that Mario used to do and some of those unbelievable goals Mario used to have? (Jagr) was just so strong on his skates that he just kind of shrugged everybody off whereas Mario literally just had to drag people with him. That first year in the playoffs, some of the goals he scored, you talked to some of the guys on the teams that we played against and they just said how hard he was to play against.”
• Craig Patrick (drafted Jagr as Pens GM in 1990): “His second year. Because it was a tough adjustment for him, language-wise and all that. We finally got Jiri Hrdina here, and that got things rolling for him.
“(Hrdina) spoke the same language and he could interpret for him because Jaromir didn’t understand everything that was going on. We put him in English classes. I brought him over (from Czechoslovakia) early to get him in English class. I’d drive him there, and I’d take him to the rink after. But he didn’t pick up English that quickly. It took him quite a while.
“(Hrdina) was a good player, and he could help Jagr out. He was a big part of us winning as well just on ice, but also off ice with Jags.”
• Ken Wregget (Penguins goalie with Jagr 1992-98): “As the season goes along and you get the players who play a lot, maybe you don’t want them to be on the ice forever (at practice) because you want them to save it for game minutes.
“Jaromir has such a passion for hockey and having fun that he would see us guys out there, the guys that didn’t play a whole lot. We had to be on the ice to do everything we could do so that when our opportunity came, we didn’t embarrass ourselves or hurt the team.
“He would see us having fun after practice, working hard. And he would stay out afterward even though he was a guy who would get 20-30 minutes of ice time. Yet he was the guy that always wanted to stay out. (Coaches) tried to get him off but he was in such good shape, he just loved the game and he couldn’t get enough of being on the ice with the guys.
“He tried things in practice to make himself better. I’d stop him. Then he’d keep going, keep going, keep going to get better … and then you couldn’t stop him.”
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• Phil Bourque (Jagr’s teammate in Pittsburgh 1990-92): “What he did in the New York Rangers series (Patrick Division Final, 1992), specifically what he did to Jeff Beukeboom. He was a pretty tough, solid defenseman for the Rangers. (Jagr) continued to dress him up and dress him down and turn them inside out. And he took over that series. That’s when Mario got slashed by Adam Graves and was out of that series. I thought that’s when Jags really went to another atmosphere, and he never left there for a long time.”
Jagr had three goals and six points in the last four games of that series.
• Larry Murphy (Jagr’s teammate in Pittsburgh 1990-95): Murphy told me that Jagr’s development was “just a progression where almost every game he got better and better.”
But Murphy was happy to take the low-hanging fruit of the goal against the Chicago Blackhawks in Game 1 of the 1992 Stanley Cup Final to tie it up at 4-4 in the third period.
“Low-hanging fruit! Well put,” Murphy joked regarding Jagr’s signature moment as a Penguin.
“The importance of the goal was quite apparent. The timing was what stood out about that particular goal. That wasn’t the first time he made plays like that. It wasn’t like all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he makes this tremendous individual effort and basically goes through the whole Hawks team. It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, my God.’ I mean, you’d say, ‘Wow, that was a tremendous play.’ But it was par for the course for him.”
Then some other scrub scored the game-winner with a few seconds left.
I wonder whatever happened to that guy?