The 2024-25 season will be 52-year-old Jaromír Jágr’s last playing professional hockey. The all-time great will retire following the 2024-25 season, he told Rob Rossi of The Athletic over the phone Thursday.
It’s been over six years since the Flames assigned Jágr to Rytíři Kladno in Czechia, his hometown club, to play out the back half of a one-year deal he signed with Calgary for the 2017-18 season. That marked the end of his 24-year, 1,733-game NHL career, but it didn’t signal the end of his days playing at the professional level.
Jágr has been Kladno’s majority owner since 2011. The Penguins’ fifth overall pick in 1990 played his first two professional seasons with the club in the Czechoslovak top league before being drafted. He also played there during NHL lockouts in 1994, 2004-05, and 2012.
But by the time Jágr returned during his age 45 season, Kladno had been demoted from the top-level Czech Extraliga to the country’s second-tier pro league. Since his return, though, Kladno has stayed in the Extraliga for five out of the last eight seasons. Jágr was a force in helping them gain their initial promotion back to the top level, scoring 10 goals in 11 qualification games in 2019 to boost them back to the Extraliga for the 2019-20 campaign.
Now in his 37th season of professional hockey, Jágr is understandably no longer a premier force on the ice. The right-winger was limited to 15 regular-season appearances for Kladno last year, posting four assists and a -4 rating. He was in the lineup for Kladno’s Extraliga regular-season opener Wednesday, though, posting an assist and a -1 rating in 14:26 of ice time. It was a promising showing after tearing his hamstring less than a month ago, putting his availability for yesterday’s game in doubt.
Jágr’s NHL résumé needs no introduction. He may have never lifted the Stanley Cup in his prime, only winning it back-to-back with Pittsburgh in his first two NHL campaigns, but he was a game-changing threat in the NHL’s most offensively challenging era. Jágr won five scoring titles, including four straight from 1998 to 2001, and also won the Pearson Award (now the Ted Lindsay Award) as the most outstanding player as selected by their peers on three occasions (1999, 2000, 2006).
On the NHL’s all-time leaderboard, Jágr ranks fourth in games played, fourth in goals (766), fifth in assists (1,155), and second in points (1,921). He’s also a member of the Triple Gold Club, powering the Czechs to a gold medal at the 1998 Winter Olympics and winning a pair of World Championship gold medals (2005, 2010).
While Jágr donned the sweater of nine NHL teams – the Penguins, Rangers, Capitals, Panthers, Devils, Flyers, Bruins, Stars, and Flames – he’ll always best be remembered for his peak years in Pittsburgh. That’s where he’ll likely return after his playing days are done next year. Rossi reported in May that the club was working to hire Jágr in a front-office role whenever he was ready to transition to the next chapter of his hockey career.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Here’s to hoping this GOAT has a great final season and finds a way to keep his club in the Czech top division. He deserves it.
Pics or it didnt happen
I know it’s silly.. but I wish he could have suited up for the Panthers for a game last year to get another ring. Why? He was a massive influence on the franchise and especially team captain Sasha Barkov… Jagr mentored him when he was drafted (I think they played 2-3 years together) and Jagr was a major influence turning the Panthers from NHL doormat to Stanley Cup Champions.
players need 40 regular season games played or at least 1 shift in the Stanley Cup Final, players can be requested/petitioned by the club to be engraved on the cup but its the leagues decision
i said a ring not his name on the cup lol
Pens should sign this legend to a one day contract and let him play a shift on the power play..
Yeah whatever Jaro, you keep saying that. XD
To belabor the “Pens fans are so spoiled” point…
Jagr is only the third or fourth best player we’ve had, somehow.
That is such a good call 66
Between the Pens and the Oilers?!?
He’s been in Kladno for a few years now and he was always clear about his mission there and for the most part, he’s done that. I suspect he’s finally done. He just loves hockey so much, he’s like an addict, getting pulled this way and that way.
Yeah, I’ll believe he retires when I see it. :D
Excellent career. Now to explain to my friends he is actually retiring… lol
Calling Jagr a legend somehow seems like an understatement.