Jaromir Jagr’s career is like the Energizer Bunny – it just keeps going and going.
The 44-year-old entered the league in 1990 as an 18-year-old and has played on eight different clubs over his long career . It’s not like Jagr has gotten worse with age either, as his production is still impressive. This year, he’s put together another above average season with the Florida Panthers, notching 20 goals and 43 points in 56 games. This weekend, he passed Brett Hull for third in all-time NHL scoring this week after potting his 742nd career goal.
Here it is.
Goal number 742.
More GIFs from last night » https://t.co/oj5h7XmhJY pic.twitter.com/QmexHDTrLi
— x – Florida Panthers (@FlaPanthers) February 21, 2016
Jagr has basically seen it all over his career, and Adam Gretz of CBS Sports notes that Jagr’s career is older than more than 1/3 of the entire league.
There have been 675 players to appear in at least one NHL game so far this season. Out of that group, 237 of them were not born when Jagr made his NHL debut on Oct. 5, 1990. That is 35 percent of the league. That includes 11 players on the Florida Panthers, including the two players (Aleksander Barkov and Jonathan Huberdeau) that he skates with on a line (Barkov and Huberdeau’s combined ages — 42 — are still younger than Jagr). On any given night he can literally skate up to multiple players on an opposing team, look them right in the eye, and say “I have been doing this since before you were born,” and he wouldn’t be lying.
As Gretz also reminds us, Jagr’s also played against a pair of current NHL head coaches during his time in the league – Chicago Blackhawks bench boss Joel Quenneville and Arizona Coyotes head coach Dave Tippett.
Jagr has stated in the past that he wants to keep playing until he’s 50, and it’s not outside the realm of possibility that he can do that while maintaining a decent level of play. He’s still over 150 goals away from breaking Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goal record, but if he can continue this pace into his 50s, then he’s got a small shot at eclipsing it. How insane would that be?
He would still have quite a ways to go to match Gordie Howe, though – the former Red Wings great played his last season in the WHA at the age of 51.
