by Stu Hackel / Special to NHL.com.
It was easy for Ron Francis to be "Captain Class," a moniker Sports Illustrated once hung on him. He only needed to be himself.
"In a sports era that celebrates the loud, the lewd, the boorish and the belly-pierced, Francis has quietly slipped through the cracks and into the record books," Gerry Callahan wrote in his 1997 Sports Illustrated profile of Francis. "He has flourished without an act, an attitude or a designer ego."
Open those record books and you'll find that Ron Francis became one the most prolific players in NHL history, residing in hockey's stratosphere alongside the game's greatest names. When, at age 41, he concluded his 23-season career in 2004 -- having starred in his own selfless way for the Hartford Whalers, Pittsburgh Penguins, Carolina Hurricanes and, very briefly, Toronto Maple Leafs -- his 1,798 points were the fourth most in NHL history; he trailed Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier and Gordie Howe. He was ranked 19th in goals with 549 and had 22 consecutive 50-point seasons, equaling Howe's record. He is second only to Gretzky (1,963) in assists and third behind Howe (1,767) and Messier (1,756) in games played.
Yet somehow, the 2007 Hockey Hall of Fame inductee is seldom top-of-mind when the very best NHL players are discussed. Francis accomplished it all with such efficiency and grace that he was easily the most overlooked superstar of his era.
"If it's possible to be the No. 2 man in assists and be underrated, Ronnie was," Ray Ferraro, a Whalers teammate from 1984-90, told the Hartford Courant in 2005. "He was so understated. He didn't beat his chest and tell everybody how good he was. And he was almost elegant in the way he played."
He was also a leader, largely by example, both on and off the ice. His own unpretentious personality did not produce gobs of media attention, but Francis was quite content using his considerable talents to make those around him better.
"I understand that my game in itself was not dominating like a Gretzky or a Lemieux or Messier," he said in 2006. "I never had the physical talent or ability to dominate a situation, but I used my talents and drew from the best of my teammates' abilities." This was Francis's way of recognizing how he elevated others, one of his greatest traits.
A parade of top scoring forwards benefitted from Francis's knack for getting them the puck: Kevin Dineen, Sylvain Turgeon and Pat Verbeek of the Whalers; Jaromir Jagr and Joe Mullen of the Penguins; and Jeff O'Neill of the Hurricanes among them. Even Lemieux would play wing on Francis' line - each finishing with 92 assists in 1995-96 -- in a marvelous trio with Jagr on the other side.
When a 41-year old-Jagr joined the Devils in 2013, he told Rich Chere of The Newark Star-Ledger about playing with Francis and what he learned from him regarding being a pro.
"Five-on-five, Ronnie Francis was my centerman for seven or eight years in Pittsburgh. He probably assisted on most of the goals I scored," Jagr said. "He gave me that extra confidence. … Even if I didn't feel very well or if I played bad, I knew he could always make me look good. That's what I want to be for the guys I play with.
"I remember my first scoring title (in 1995). I needed to score a point. He had the flu. We'd played together for a long time. He shouldn't have played, but he played for me so I felt comfortable. I scored and won the scoring [title]. He told me after the game [how he felt], but he didn't show you that."
Francis also excelled in some of the game's subtle arts. His body positioning and quick hands made him one of hockey's best tip-in goal scorers. He checked top forwards as well as he produced points and did so cleanly, staying out of the penalty box. He was among the best faceoff men in the League, learning the tendencies not just of opposing centers but also the officials who dropped the puck. He also positioned his teammates to win the puck after it was dropped.
Most of all, Francis had a very high hockey IQ. "He sees things on the ice that sometimes as a coach you wait to see on video," Paul Maurice, who coached him in Carolina, told Bob Foltman of The Chicago Tribune. "He's an incredibly bright hockey man."
And he contributed mightily to the Penguins' two consecutive Stanley Cup championships, playing his best hockey at the most critical moments, especially in 1992 when Mario Lemieux broke his hand in the second round of the playoffs. "Our whole team hung in there but it was Ron Francis who steered the ship," Pierre McGuire, an assistant coach of those Penguins teams, told author Kevin Allen in the 2009 book "Then Wayne Said to Mario …"
Born in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, on March 1, 1963, Francis came from a blue-collar background -- his father, Ron, worked in a local steel mill for 40 years -- that served as the source of his work ethic and demeanor. Staying home for junior hockey, he averaged about a point per game for the Soo Greyhounds before Hartford selected him at No. 4 in the 1981 NHL Draft. He began a second season in junior but, after averaging nearly two points a game, he was summoned by the Whalers to the NHL in mid-November of '81, where he was mentored by his roommate, future Hall of Famer Dave Keon.
A 25-goal, 43-assist first season got Hartford fans seeing him as the foundation for the club's future. They called him "Ronnie Franchise," and for nearly 10 full seasons Francis did just about everything for the Whalers. He led them in scoring five times and in assists nine times. At nearly 22 he was named captain in February 1985 and was pegged as the young, rising star who -- it was hoped -- would lift the small-market franchise to the Stanley Cup.
Then, quite suddenly, things changed after the 1989-90 season. The fans' love for him remained, but Francis' relationship with the organization frayed following a fourth straight disappointing first-round playoff knockout. Contract negotiations with new ownership and management stalled. Coach Rick Ley inexplicably stripped Francis of the captaincy. The Whalers and Francis drifted apart.
Coincidentally, for one week in late 1990, a Pittsburgh pro scout had watched the Whalers play three home games, looking for help on defense. He was most impressed with No. 10, who played a complete game, had energy and great vision, passed excellently, possessed a good shot and cleaned out opposing centers on faceoffs. He wasn't the fastest skater, but showed great balance and, at 6-foot-2, 200 pounds, was very hard to knock off the puck. The scout thought he'd be a terrific second center in Pittsburgh behind Mario Lemieux.
As the 1991 trade deadline neared and Hartford badly sputtered, the Whalers called around, telling teams they'd move Francis. Penguins general manager Craig Patrick pounced, acquiring him and much-needed physical defensemen Ulf Samuelsson and Grant Jennings on March 4.
"Funny, how I went from the best thing since sliced bread last season to totally on the outs over the summer," the normally reserved Francis told the Hartford Courant when he learned of the trade. "But I'm pleased I was able to put it out of my mind and play well the last few months."
So the 27-year-old Francis, just entering the prime of his career, went to work for the Penguins. Two weeks later, after playing three games with his new team, he told Samuelsson, "Ulfie, I think we can win the Stanley Cup." He was right.
"Certainly, we weren't a championship-caliber team, in my opinion, until we made that deal," Patrick told the Penguins website 15 years later. "It was very important for us because it gave us two top centermen. Ronnie was playing No. 1 center in Hartford and to bring him here to play with Mario, when you have two guys like that, it's pretty special to have that in this League at any time."
What didn't happen in Hartford, happened in Pittsburgh -- Francis played a critical role in winning the Stanley Cup that spring and the following season too. In '91, he scored seven playoff goals, all at even strength, four of them game-winners. In the crucial Game 4 of the second round against the Rangers in '92, he had a hat trick, capped off by the overtime winner, prompting neighbors to festoon the tree in front of his house with hats. He led the NHL with 19 playoff assists that season, and the last of his eight goals was the Cup-winner against the Chicago Blackhawks.
"He had an uncanny ability to elevate at big moments in games," McGuire said. "When big games came up, his name was always on the scoresheet and always at big times in those games. He stood out in all eight playoff series."
Francis quietly starred in Pittsburgh for seven full seasons, always leading by example and twice serving as captain. He led the NHL twice in assists, was twice awarded the Lady Byng Trophy for sportsmanship, won the Selke Trophy as the best defensive forward once and finished second in Selke voting another time.
Then, in 1998, he signed as a free agent with the relocated Whalers franchise, now in North Carolina -- in part, he said, to build hockey interest in a nontraditional market. He played five-plus seasons with the Hurricanes, leading them in scoring twice. In 2002 he won his third Lady Byng Trophy for sportsmanship and the King Clancy Trophy for leadership and humanitarian contributions in the community. He was the Hurricanes captain for five seasons.
In 2002 the Hurricanes made their first Cup Final, and Francis led them in playoff scoring with 16 points. Of his six goals, three of them won games, including Game 1 of the Final against the Detroit Red Wings, when he scored in overtime, the biggest goal in Whalers/Hurricanes history to that point.
"His reaction to it was much like any other goal he scored," teammate Aaron Ward said. "He didn't make a mockery of it or jump up and down. He just put his stick up in the air like any other goal."
"Ronnie was a player who was the same every day and that's what amazed me," teammate Kevyn Adams said.
But Francis could surprise, too. Three weeks after the '02 Final, with Detroit having prevailed, Francis got together with Hurricanes equipment manager Skip Cunningham, who was with the Whalers when the teenage Francis broke into the NHL in '81. An appreciative Francis had mounted the puck from the overtime goal and the scoresheet on a plaque and made it a gift for Cunningham.
"Class," Cunningham said. "There's no other word for it."
He was always "Captain Class."
by Nicholas J. Cotsonika / NHL.com Columnist
Eric Lindros didn't enjoy hockey because he was a great player. He was a great player because he enjoyed hockey.
The joy brought out his ability.
"There were results when I enjoyed it," he says. "When I enjoyed it, I played well."
When did he enjoy himself most?
"The '90s," he says. "Most of the '90s."
When he was healthy, happy and humming, Lindros was a dominant force. He had the skill of a small man but stood 6-feet-4, weighed 240 pounds and powered through opponents with a mean streak.
From the time he broke into the NHL with the Philadelphia Flyers in 1992-93 to his final season with them in 1999-2000, he averaged 1.36 points per game. Only Mario Lemieux (2.11) and Jaromir Jagr (1.45) averaged more.
He centered John LeClair and Mikael Renberg on the "Legion of Doom" line, won the Hart Trophy as the NHL's most valuable player in 1994-95 and led the Stanley Cup Playoffs with 26 points in 19 games in 1996-97, when the Flyers made the Final. He averaged 1.14 points per game in the playoffs with the Flyers.
Lindros was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2016.
"He, without question, was one of the best," said Keith Jones, who played with and against Lindros. "There were times and periods of time when he was the best in the game."
Even the greatest players marveled at him.
"He changed the game," Wayne Gretzky said. "When Eric came in, he was that new physical power forward that happened to have really good hands."
Mark Howe, son of Gordie Howe and a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame himself, was playing defense for the Detroit Red Wings against the Flyers at the Spectrum. As he went back for a puck, he knew a young Lindros was coming. So he moved the puck and stepped aside.
Lindros didn't finish his check. Still, he was five inches and 55 pounds bigger than Howe. His shoulder grazed Howe's chin on the way by.
"I went boom, right up against the boards," Howe says. "I was seeing stars for a couple seconds. I got to the bench and said, 'Oh, my God. If he wanted to hit me, it probably would have killed me.' He was just a mountain of a man."
Lindros excelled during his first two seasons in the NHL. But he reached another level after Flyers general manager Bobby Clarke acquired LeClair in a trade with the Montreal Canadiens on Feb. 9, 1995. Coach Terry Murray put the 6-3, 226-pound LeClair and 6-2, 235-pound Renberg on Lindros' wings.
In the first period of their second game together, LeClair camped in front of the New Jersey Devils' net and stuffed in a pass from Lindros. After the 3-1 win, Flyers center Jim Montgomery said, "They look like the Legion of Doom out there."
The nickname stuck. If they had the puck, opponents were doomed. For three seasons, they dominated. The season after winning the Hart, Lindros set career highs with 47 goals, 68 assists and 115 points in 1995-96.
"We played similar styles," Lindros says. "We enjoyed coming to practice. We had a lot of fun at practice together, and I think that really paid off in terms of what happened on the ice during games. I think there was a direct correlation to that. You've got a group of guys that truly enjoy coming in in the morning and being around each other all the time, you're going to have much better success."
LeClair credits Lindros with raising the standard and bringing out everyone's best. If you failed on a scoring chance, he wouldn't be afraid to say, "You've got to score that." He'd say, "Practice hard. Score every drill. We're out here to play hard." Or he'd say, "Let's score every time. We're here, so let's beat these guys 3-on-3 down low. Let's beat them."
Lindros laughs about it now. Of course he does.
"It's the goal of the game, pardon the pun," he says. "Just keeping things tidy. If we're going to go through a drill, if we're going to skate and have a whole bunch of regroups and go all the way up and down that ice a whole bunch of times, let's finish it off with a goal."
The Flyers traded Renberg to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Aug. 20, 1997. The Legion of Doom was done. But Lindros and LeClair were not.
Jones arrived via trade from the Colorado Avalanche on Nov. 12, 1998. He says he had one good knee and another "hanging on by a thread" at the time. But coach Roger Neilson decided to try him with Lindros and LeClair in his first game.
"I'm thinking, 'Perfect. Get me out there,'" Jones says.
The first two periods didn't go well. But Lindros kept encouraging Jones, and in the third, Jones scored on Devils goaltender Martin Brodeur for the first time in his career and had an assist in a 6-1 victory for the Flyers. After going without a point in his last seven games with the Avalanche, Jones had 10 points in his first six with the Flyers.
"All of that was on the back of Eric," Jones says. "Believe me, I was almost done in Colorado. So that's how good he was. He could make other players better as long as you thought the game well. He could carry you."
And push you.
"I hated practice," Jones says. "I was forced into doing a lot more than I wanted to because of the way that both he and John LeClair practiced. But Eric stood out above all. I was almost shocked when I got here. It wouldn't matter if he had a short night of sleep. He never shorted practice."
Because he never hated it.
"I always enjoyed practice," Lindros says. "It didn't seem like a whole lot of work. It wasn't work. It was fun."
Lindros' story includes controversy and disappointment. He refused to play for the Quebec Nordiques after they selected him No. 1 in the 1991 NHL Draft and sat out what could have been his rookie season waiting for a trade.
He ended up with the Flyers after an arbitrator ruled the Nordiques had agreed to a trade with Philadelphia before agreeing to one with the New York Rangers. One of the players the Flyers gave up for him, Peter Forsberg, won the Hart Trophy himself and the Stanley Cup twice after the Nordiques became the Avalanche.
Lindros and his parents often clashed with Flyers management, and he was stripped of the captaincy in 1999-2000.
"What you saw on the ice was really what Eric was," Jones says. "His strengths were not his ability to communicate, although he tried really hard. His strength was his game."
Lindros missed 140 games during his eight seasons with the Flyers, almost a quarter of their games. He sustained his sixth concussion in 27 months when Devils defenseman Scott Stevens caught him with his head down and put a shoulder into his jaw in the first period of Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Final in 2000.
He had come back from a concussion after a 10-week absence and scored a goal in Game 6, trying to keep the Flyers from blowing a 3-1 series deficit, only to suffer that devastating hit. He would never play for Philadelphia, and would never be the same, again. He sat out the 2000-01 season in a contract dispute with the Flyers and was traded to the Rangers.
The irony is Lindros was injured by his own greatness. He grew up as the biggest and strongest and best kid, never worrying about skating with his head down, opponents bouncing off him like Lilliputians. But that cost him in the NHL.
Lindros had 73 points (37 goals, 36 assists) in 72 games with the Rangers and won a gold medal with Canada at the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2001-02, then played two more seasons with New York, one with the Toronto Maple Leafs and one with the Dallas Stars. He retired at age 33 having played 760 regular-season and 53 playoff games in the NHL, never having won the Stanley Cup. His final regular-season totals: 372 goals, 493 assists, 865 points and 1,398 penalty minutes.
"I moved to wing and just didn't have the confidence to cut through the middle of the ice anymore," Lindros says. "I felt vulnerable. I didn't want to get hit the same way I got hit the past."
But in the end, what he did outweighed what he didn't, and it all goes back to the same thing.
"There were some fun times and some great experiences," he says. "If I didn't love the game as much as I did, I would have stopped playing."
When he thinks about his career now, he thinks about everything -- success, failure, teammates, coaches -- and this is his conclusion:
"You feel fortunate," he says.
by Kevin Allen / Special to NHL.com.
What former New York Rangers general manager Neil Smith remembers most about Hall of Fame defenseman Brian Leetch's winning the Conn Smythe Trophy in 1994 was that he seemed embarrassed to accept it.
"If you look at the tape of him getting the trophy from (Commissioner) Gary Bettman he was so shy about it," Smith said. "It was like, 'OK, I have to go get this now.'"
Leetch was the top scorer in the Stanley Cup Playoffs that season with 34 points (11 goals) in 23 games and became the first American to win the Conn Smythe as postseason MVP.
"To outscore every other forward and defenseman in the 1994 playoffs is amazing," Smith said. "It would be a lifetime achievement for most players, but I am absolutely sure that Brian has never brought that up. He understood how good he was, but he was very unassuming. You always had to drag words out of him."
Not many NHL players have done more in a career, and talked less about it, than Leetch. He is one of five NHL defensemen to score 100 or more points in a season. He has won the Stanley Cup, the Calder Trophy as the NHL rookie of the year and the Norris Trophy twice as the League's top defenseman. He was captain of the United States tam that won the 1996 World Cup of Hockey. He's accomplished all of this without explaining himself.
"One night he scored a hat trick in a playoff game in Philadelphia and I said to him, 'I don't think I've ever seen a defenseman do that,'" Smith said. "But I was far more amazed than he was."
People around hockey were always more impressed with Leetch than he ever was with himself.
"His skating ability was ridiculous," former NHL forward and United States teammate Bill Guerin said. "It was effortless. He could glide across the ice. His hands and legs would be going in different directions. He could pass the puck in stride, and laser-beam a puck across the ice on your tape."
The Rangers selected him with the No. 9 pick in the 1986 NHL Draft after he scored 40 goals and 84 points in 24 games during his final season at Avon Old Farms prep school in Connecticut (Leetch grew up in Cheshire, Conn.).
"Smooth is the perfect word I would use to describe Leetch," said NBC Sports analyst Ed Olczyk, also a member of the Rangers' 1994 championship team. "He did everything at the same level. He could skate you out of trouble as well as any defenseman I've played with or against skating."
At 19, Leetch was the most skilled player on the United States Olympic team at the 1988 Games in Calgary.
"So much poise and control," said USA Hockey general manager Jim Johannson, who played on that team. "He probably had the best agility of anyone I've ever played with. He had a precision that no one also did."
Johannson recalled that when the Americans lost 7-5 in group play to the Soviet Union -- which had Igor Larionov, Vladimir Krutov, Sergei Makarov and Alexander Mogilny -- "Leetchie almost took over the game."
Johannson remembered Leetch hit the post when the Soviets held a 6-5 lead.
"They couldn't get the puck from him," Johannson said. "Every Russian was good, but he was the best player in that game."
His signature move was a swivel-hip, side-to-side, shake-and-bake, which often ended with Leetch moving smartly around his opponent. He left many opposing players in his wake.
"He was a different type of puck-moving defenseman," Smith said. "He didn't race up ice like Paul Coffey or Bobby Orr. It never became all about Leetch where you wondered if he would go coast-to-coast and score, although he did do that at times. But once he got the puck the other team was in trouble. We were going to for sure get it out of our zone, and most likely we were going to end up with a scoring chance, even if he started in our zone."
Smith said he admired Leetch also because he always did what made him most comfortable. He wore a half-shield long before it became mandatory. He didn't skate the way others skated. He didn't tape his socks with the same level of concern as everyone else. He was less fussy about how he looked. His focus was on playing the game.
NBC Sports broadcaster Mike Emrick can offer testimony that Leetch was a student of his craft. He said Leetch spoke with professional admiration about the way Nicklas Lidstrom played his position. Leetch had watched Lidstrom make one of his textbook breakups of a play along the boards.
"He said [Lidstrom] makes it look easy, but when you play this sport for a living you realize how hard that play is to make," Emrick said. "Leave it to Brian Leetch to describe how well Lidstrom could play [one-on-one against] somebody. [He could to that] because he could do it himself."
Smith said that early in Leetch's career he asked the defenseman who his favorite player was growing up. He was stunned by his response.
"He said: 'I really didn't have one,'" Smith said with a laugh. "I found that amazing."
Then it dawned on Smith that Leetch's uniqueness resulted from the fact that he never patterned himself after any NHL player. He played the way that made him comfortable. It was if Leetch had created a work of art from a blank canvas.
"He became a tremendous player just on his own," Smith said. "He decided how he was going to play hockey. He didn't copy someone like other players did. He didn't try to fit in. He was his own man."
Leetch played 1,205 NHL games, all but 76 with the Rangers. It is easy to forget that he played with the Toronto Maple Leafs and Boston Bruins at the end of his career; he arguably looked out of place in those jerseys.
"For an American to be a star of the Rangers, the NHL's biggest American franchise, was important in that era," Smith said. "Before then it was Rod Gilbert from Quebec or Brad Park from Toronto and so on. To have an American, born in Texas, as the Rangers' best player was something. At that time, we were just starting to [accept] that Americans could be star players."
No defenseman has managed to score 100 points since Leetch had 102 in 1991-92.
"He had the ability to go in whatever direction he wanted to go at the drop of a dime," Smith said. "He could avoid so much contact because of that ability."
It wasn't as if he was worried about getting waylaid by heavy hitting.
"He wasn't the slightest bit afraid," Smith said.
Smith said Leetch's offensive flair overshadowed the reality that he was always a dependable defensive player. Another gift he had was a superhuman-like ability to recover quickly from his shifts. He could play more minutes than anyone else on the team because he could regain his normal breathing pattern so quickly.
That was important, Smith said, because "we wanted him on the ice in all situations."
"If you ask who the best hockey player we had in my 11 years with the team, it would have to be Brian Leetch," Smith said.
Smith said Mark Messier was probably the most important player on the 1994 championship team because his leadership drew the team together. "But even Mess has said that Leetch was the best player," Smith said.
The 2009 book "100 Ranger Greats," by Russ Cohen, John Halligan and Adam Raider, argues that Leetch is the greatest Rangers player of all.
"Raider created a mathematical formula and we considered years of service and team and league awards," Cohen said. "It came down to Leetch and Rod Gilbert. Winning the Stanley Cup wasn't the biggest factor for me. The biggest for me was the impact Leetch had on the franchise. It was greater than Gilbert's. Others agreed. The Rangers have yet to have another defenseman that has remotely produced the way Leetch could."
Nashville Predators general manager David Poile was the Washington Capitals GM when Leetch broke in with the Rangers in 1987-88. He said it wasn't long before preparing for the Rangers meant preparing to deal with Leetch.
"Your whole game plan against the Rangers started with Brian Leetch," Poile said. "He was the perfect defenseman. Offensively. Defensively. Big minutes. Durable. He played in all situations. Every year he was in the running for the Norris Trophy."
Leetch, a 2009 Hockey Hall of Fame inductee, was the first American to win the Conn Smythe Trophy, and he's still the only American defenseman to do so.
"In terms of skating, passing and hockey sense, no other American defenseman can touch him," USA Hockey executive Lou Vairo said. "He's our version of Bobby Orr."
by Stu Hackel / Special to NHL.com
He sits atop Goalie Mountain.
Others may have been more charismatic, more quotable, more colorful, more physical, more acrobatic or more technically exacting than Martin Brodeur. Others may have carried magnificent nicknames: "The King," or "Saint Patrick" or "The Dominator." He was just plain Marty.
Nicknames were nice, but instead of one, Brodeur heard a frequent chant from New Jersey Devils fans: "Mar-ty's bet-ter!"
While debates may rage forever about, say, which NHL goalie would be the best pick to start a franchise or which one would have the best chance to win a Game 7, if the NHL record book is your frame of reference, Martin Brodeur really was better.
No goalie has more wins (691), saves (28,928), or shutouts (125), or played more games (1,266). He was the youngest goalie to win 300 NHL games. And 400. And 500.
"Some of his records are Gretzky-like," said John MacLean, Brodeur's former Devils teammate and coach. "They're going to be hard to break."
He received a number of well-deserved honors, winning the Vezina Trophy (for best goaltender) four times and the Jennings Trophy -- awarded to the goaltender(s) on the team allowing the fewest goals -- five times. He made the NHL First All-Star Team four times and the Second All-Star Team three times, and won the Calder Trophy as the League's top rookie in 1993-94, when he nearly carried the Devils to the Stanley Cup Final. The next season, he helped make the Devils unlikely Cup champions.
Yes, he was more than just a standout regular-season performer. Brodeur's career playoff marks underscore how well he could elevate his game when it mattered most. His 113 playoff victories and 205 postseason games played rank second all-time to his boyhood idol, Patrick Roy. His 24 postseason shutouts are most all-time, one ahead of Roy.
"His net gets smaller when the games get bigger," Jaromir Jagr, who knows a few things about goal-scoring, said of Brodeur.
He was, as Charles McGrath wrote in The New York Times Magazine in 2013, "the backbone of the team's three successful Stanley Cup campaigns" in '95, 2000 and '03 -- not to mention the other two deep runs New Jersey made when it fell just short by losing the Cup Final, once when he was 40 years old in 2012.
That last fact speaks to two of Brodeur's more impressive qualities: durability and consistency. He played 1,266 games, 237 more than Roy, who is second. That's a margin of almost three full seasons.
And Brodeur, impervious to exhaustion, played at least 70 games 12 times, including 10 seasons in a row, only slowing down in his late 30s. In between his four games in 1991-92 with the Devils and his seven-game stint with the St. Louis Blues in 2014-15, his final season, his goals-against average was under 2.50 (and in one exception, it was 2.51) in 18 of 20 full NHL seasons, all in New Jersey. In 10 of those, it was under 2.25, including his remarkable 1996-97 season, when his 1.88 GAA was the NHL's lowest in 25 years. He followed that up with a 1.89 in 1997-98.
But let's stop here and talk about the elephant in the rink, namely, the Devils' famously stupefying defensive game, which, for much of Brodeur's career, limited opposing teams' shots and quality scoring chances. Critics railed against them -- to which the coach who brought the neutral zone trap to New Jersey, Jacques Lemaire, replied at the press conference following the Devils' sweep of the Detroit Red Wings for the Cup in '95, "Tough."
Much as Lemaire felt no need to apologize, neither should Brodeur's supporters. It can be just as difficult to play goalie facing 20 shots a game as when you face 45, and in some ways even more difficult.
Hall of Famer Ken Dryden similarly benefited from terrific defense with the Montreal Canadiens in the 1970s and, as he said in his book "The Game," it evaporates a goalie's margin for error and adds to the pressure. "On a good team," Dryden wrote, "a goalie has few near-impossible saves to make, but the rest he must make." He said that he believed the Canadiens needed him "not to be distracted by bad goals, by looseness or uncertainty in my play."
And so it was for the Devils. "Brodeur's numbers are terrific, but I'm not impressed by them," then-New York Islanders general manager Mike Milbury told Sports Illustrated in 1997. "Here's a guy who plays for a team that puts a chokehold on the opposition's attack, so I'm not surprised [by the low GAA]. What I'm impressed by, and what makes him a great goaltender, is that he stops the puck when it needs to be stopped. He's cool. The pressure doesn't bother him. Night after night he seems to be involved in 1-0, 2-1 games, and the pressure never seems to be a factor."
Then-Devils GM Lou Lamoriello told McGrath, "Marty's mental toughness, his ability to overcome a bad game, is just phenomenal." McGrath spoke to numerous hockey people and concluded from them that "Brodeur's particular strength is his ability to bounce back from a bad goal and not let it gnaw at him."
He seemed to have the perfect temperament for the job, no matter the circumstances. A parade of teammates testified over the years that -- unlike the stereotypical goalie of erratic temperament and eccentric behavior -- Marty was just a "normal" guy.
Teammate Sheldon Souray described to Sports Illustrated's Michael Farber a representative Brodeur moment: "There's Marty after the second period, having his Sprite and half a bagel, working on a shutout, and he's talking and joking with the guys in the room. Then he'll go out and stop 10 shots in the third. There's just this calmness about him. Maybe it's because he still thinks of hockey as a game."
"He relishes the big game and big moments and wants it on his shoulders, but he's very relaxed about it," Bill Guerin, a Devils teammate for four-plus seasons, told Farber. "Marty's like, 'Yeah, let's go win a game.'"
As Brodeur himself said, "I just don't get nervous at a hockey rink."
Perhaps his ease on the ice could be traced to his perspective on his job, which he embraced as an art as well as a craft. In his autobiography, "Brodeur: Beyond the Crease," he wrote that being a goalie was "to be the most creative player on the ice. It demands innovation and imagination, an ability to adapt and consider alternatives in a split second, the capacity to generate multiple answers to the same, or similar questions."
For him, that meant eschewing the popular butterfly style of goaltending. "I needed to be able to poke-check, to stack the pads and be able to play the puck behind the net," he wrote. Brodeur created his own hybrid style that was unpredictable to shooters. "I could come down the right side three different times and shoot the same shot and he'd make three different saves," Ottawa Senators forward Daniel Alfredsson said.
It also meant being a shooter as well as being shot at, and he scored three goals -- two in the regular season and one in the playoffs -- the most by an NHL goalie.
He also may have been the best puck-handling goaltender ever, aiding his defense by corralling dump-ins and dumping them right back out or passing to a teammate. It made him, in essence, a third defenseman, and a reason why the NHL installed the trapezoid behind the net to restrict goalies' movements with the puck.
He defied goalies' conventional 1-on-1 approach that said he should be patient and force shooters to move first, then react. He wrote, "I didn't mind making the first move if I could dictate the moment" and force the shooter to react to him.
Plus, he had the Gretzky-like gift of otherworldly anticipation, and from a goalie's perspective, that meant being square to the shooter far more often than not. "He probably read and tracked the puck and he saw the game before it happened better than, I think, any goalie," said current Devils goalie Cory Schneider, who admired Brodeur first as an opponent and then a teammate. "I think he knew where the puck was going to be before any of the shooters did."
Much of this came from his partnership with Jacques Caron, a pioneer among goalie coaches. He arrived in New Jersey around the same time as the Devils' first-round pick (No. 20) in the 1990 NHL Draft did. Brodeur called him "a second father."
His real father, Denis, had been a fine goalie as well, winning a bronze medal with Canada at the 1956 Olympics, then becoming an esteemed sports photographer. But Denis rarely offered goaltending advice; instead, he made his biggest impact helping his wife, Mireille, in raising a well-grounded son, the youngest of five children, in the St.-Leonard neighborhood of Montreal.
Young Marty began hockey as a forward and, at 6 years old, added backup-goalie duties on a second team. He eventually supplanted the starting goalie and when, at 7, he was asked which position he wanted to play that winter, he chose goalie. "I wanted to play 60 minutes a game," he said. "I learned the way you play will decide the outcome of the game and that was a fun pressure to have."
He had so much fun that he made it to the top of the mountain.
NHL REVEALS COMPLETE LIST OF 100 GREATEST NHL PLAYERS
The NHL unveiled its complete list of 100 Greatest NHL Players presented by Molson Canadian, revealing the names of 67 legends (1967-present) who joined the previously announced group of 33 players (predominantly from the League's first 50 years, 1917-66). All 100 players were honored during THE NHL100 presented by GEICO at Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on Friday.
The 100 Greatest NHL Players presented by Molson Canadian includes 39 centers, 21 defensemen, 15 goaltenders, 15 right wings and 10 left wings. The group has won a combined 307 Stanley Cup titles, the Hart Trophy 68 teimes, the Art Ross Trophy 58 times, the Vezina Trophy 49 times, the Norris Trophy 46 times, the Lady Byng Trophy 38 times, the Ted Lindsay Award 38 times, the Conn Smythe Trophy 36 times, the Calder Trophy 25 times, the William M. Jennings Trophy 15 times and the Selke Trophy 13 times.
A Blue Ribbon Panel, comprised of 58 individuals representing more than 1,800 years of experience in the game, selected the 100 Greatest NHL Players presented by Molson Canadian. Every member of the panel voted for 100 players, with each vote worth one point. Voting was conducted last July and August, with the results tabulated by accounting firm Ernst & Young.
Visit NHL.com/100 for the complete list of the 100 Greatest NHL Players presented by Molson Canadian as well as biographies and video vignettes for each player.
DIVISIONS FACE OFF IN ALL-STAR SKILLS COMPETITION
The 2017 Coors Light NHL All-Star Skills Competition on Saturday pits all four divisions - the Atlantic, Central, Metropolitan and Pacific - against each other for the first time, with the winning team earning the right to select both its first opponent and when its semifinal matchup will be played (first or second) during the 2017 Honda NHL All-Star Game on Sunday.
All four divisions will compete in six events:
* Gatorade NHL Skills Challenge Relay
* Honda NHL Four Line Challenge
* DraftKings NHL Accuracy Shooting
* Bridgestone NHL Fastest Skater
* Oscar Mayer NHL Hardest Shot
* Discover NHL Shootout
NHL, KINGS UNVEIL ALL-STAR LEGACY PROJECT
The NHL and Los Angeles Kings unveiled renovated indoor and outdoor spaces at the Crenshaw Family YMCA as part of the 2017 NHL All-Star Legacy Project - a lasting legacy in the Los Angeles community to celebrate the 2017 Honda NHL All-Star Weekend as well as the Kings' 50th Anniversary.
The 2017 NHL All-Star Legacy Project includes significant renovations to much-needed areas within the Crenshaw Family YMCA, a nonprofit organization that services more than 2,500 youth in the area.
Since 2007, the League, its clubs and partners have collectively donated more than $1 million to communities across North America as part of the Legacy Project.
- NHL Public Relations
by Dave Stubbs / NHL.com Columnist
Every superlative has been used, many strung together, to describe the otherwordly talent of Wayne Gretzky, who commonly is regarded as the greatest hockey player ever.
Based purely on statistics, there is no argument -- the man is without peer, nor will he have one in the foreseeable future. He owns many records from the ranks of peewee hockey to the NHL, sitting atop every meaningful offensive category, often miles ahead of the players ranked second.
Gretzky's list of achievements is as long as the sticks, first wooden, then composite, that he handled like magic wands, his combined feats a preposterous encyclopedia.
The Great One retired in 1999 following a 20-season NHL career with the Edmonton Oilers, Los Angeles Kings, St. Louis Blues and New York Rangers.
Gretzky took with him 61 NHL records, including a handful that are truly staggering: single-season marks of 92 goals, 163 assists and 215 points; a point streak of 51 games; 894 career goals and 2,857 career points; 15 seasons of 100 or more points, 13 of them consecutive.
And in 1981-82, at age 20, he scored 50 goals in an unthinkable 39 games, obliterating the record of 50 in 50 set by Montreal Canadiens legend Maurice "Rocket" Richard in 1944-45 and equaled by Mike Bossy of the New York Islanders in 1980-81. On his historic run, Gretzky scored four goals in Game 38 and five in Game 39.
Then there's his ridiculous haul of silverware:
Four Stanley Cup championships with the Edmonton Oilers during the 1980s; winner of the Hart Trophy nine times as the NHL's most valuable player; 10-time winner of the Art Ross Trophy as the League's leading scorer, including seven consecutive; twice the winner of the Conn Smythe Trophy as the postseason MVP; and five times the winner of the Lady Byng Trophy and Ted Lindsay Award, respectively given annually to the NHL's most gentlemanly player and to the MVP as voted by the players.
To see Gretzky, who appeared in 18 All-Star Games, play -- to see him control a game, to anticipate everything on the ice, to watch foes in futile pursuit, the very best left chasing his shadow, even his ghost -- was to see an artist creating a masterpiece on a canvas measuring 200 by 85 feet.
"Hitting him," said Glen Sather, Gretzky's coach on Edmonton's dynasty teams, "is like trying to hit confetti."
Indeed, Gretzky, always one of the smallest on the ice, seemed to weigh little more than paper dust. But it mattered little that in the NHL he carried a generously advertised 185 pounds on his 6-foot frame.
"I stayed healthy because I could hardly play a crash-and-bang style with my skinny little body," Gretzky once said. "The guys who play a physical game grind themselves down because the body can only repair itself so often."
What Gretzky did with his slight physique defied most every law that had governed professional hockey before he arrived with the World Hockey Association's Oilers in 1979-80, traded to them less than three months before his 18th birthday by the financially ailing Indianapolis Racers of the same league.
His love of hockey began when, as a 2-year-old in his hometown of Brantford, Ontario, he was taken for a skate by his father on the Nith River below his grandparents' nearby farm. On this river and on wind-swept community rinks well after dark, Walter Gretzky watched his son until he could freeze no more. In self-preservation, he would build perhaps the world's most famous backyard rink, young Wayne skating on it morning, noon and night, aimed squarely at superstardom.
By age 5, Gretzky was playing for the Brantford novice-class all-star team, which included players five and six years his senior. A year later, he was trying out for his first real team with boys still much his elder, arriving at the rink with a bundle of nerves and a bushel of talent.
Gretzky scored just one goal with that team, the trainer giving him the puck and saying, "You'll score a lot more than this, but here's the first one."
By age 13, Gretzky had scored more than 1,000 goals in minor hockey, getting 27 in his second season, then 104, with 63 assists, in his third.
Turning 10 in 1970-71, he scored 196 goals with 120 assists in 76 games. If Gretzky's body wasn't sprouting, his talent was skyrocketing. In his final season of peewee, wearing the No. 9 of his NHL idol, Gordie Howe, spanning ages 10 and 11, the 4-foot-10, 70-pound Gretzky scored 378 goals with 139 assists in 85 games as captain of the Brantford Nadrofsky Steelers.
That was followed by league-leading seasons of 105, 192 and 90 goals, against tougher, older competition, the youngster by now a celebrity across the land. A wonderful baseball and lacrosse player when he wasn't on skates, he also was silky smooth with the media when barely into his teens, a skill that would come in handy.
Gretzky would meet Howe, the Detroit Red Wings icon, in a limousine on the way to Brantford's 1972 Kiwanis Club Great Men of Sports dinner, starstruck into silence. Mr. Hockey would remind Gretzky, fresh off his 378-goal peewee season, of the importance of working on his backhand. It likely was not by coincidence that Gretzky's first goals in Junior B, Junior A, the WHA and the NHL, and the goal on Oct. 15, 1989, that gave him his 1,851st point -- on which he passed Howe for the all-time NHL lead with the latter proudly watching -- all came on backhands.
From minor hockey into major junior with the Soo Greyhounds in Sault Ste. Marie for one season, then turning pro at age 17 with the Indianapolis Racers of the World Hockey Association and into the NHL with the Oilers, Gretzky's ride was a rocket ship to the stars.
In "The Soo" he would first pull on No. 99, his preferred No. 9 already being worn by a veteran teammate. Coach Murray "Muzz" MacPherson suggested not just one 9 on his back, but two. Gretzky agreed, after some reluctance, and he wore No. 99 with such distinction in the NHL that it would be retired League-wide at the 50th All-Star Game on Feb. 6, 2000.
Gretzky's path to his 1999 Hockey Hall of Fame induction was paved with one incredible achievement after another. Between 1981-82 and 1986-87, he averaged 203.2 points per season, prompting Sports Illustrated writer E.M. Swift to ask, "What was he doing? Bowling?"
In nine NHL seasons with the Oilers, Gretzky scored 583 goals and assisted on 1,086 more, boasting an incredible rating of plus-551.
Destroying the 50-in-50 record was a thing of wonder; he combined for nine goals at the Los Angeles Kings and at home against the Philadelphia Flyers in Games 38 and 39 to hit the mark in 11 fewer games than it took "The Rocket" or Bossy.
And then, on Aug. 9, 1988, with the Oilers just having swept the Boston Bruins that spring for their fourth Stanley Cup title in five seasons and Gretzky having won the Conn Smythe with 43 points in 19 games, the NHL landscape changed forever with the most stunning trade in League history.
The Oilers sent Gretzky to the Kings with Marty McSorley and Mike Krushelnyski for Martin Gelinas, Jimmy Carson, three first-round draft picks and $15 million in cash.
Gretzky, having wed actress Janet Jones 24 days earlier in what was Edmonton's grandest society wedding ever, wept at the news conference announcing the transaction. But the trade wasn't a shock to him; once it had become inevitable, he had a large say in the mechanics of the deal.
All of Canada had an anxiety attack. In Los Angeles, meanwhile, Kings owner Bruce McNall now had the superstar who would make his team the hottest ticket in town, a player who ultimately would help not just the Kings but give hockey a badly needed breath of life throughout California and in many parts of the United States, and give the NHL instant credibility in markets where the game wasn't on the radar.
A change of address did nothing to change Gretzky's style of play. His entire career, he perfected the art of roaring into the offensive zone along the boards, then slamming on the brakes to allow his teammates to catch up and take position.
"He made the late man coming into the zone the most dangerous man," former Boston Bruins general manager Harry Sinden said. "Gretzky could hold the puck for so long, turning toward the boards and stick-handling in place, that even if you knew what he was going to do, you couldn't stop him."
Another part of Gretzky's unique skill was the way he quarterbacked a game from his "office," parked behind the opponent's net where he could set up a play or create space for teammates should a defenseman foolishly try to flush him out.
The playmaking side of his game contributed handsomely to the 1,963 assists (the most in NHL history) he put up beside 894 career regular-season goals. Gretzky's passing was the product of endless practice as a boy, his father drilling him in the "saucer pass," a flip off the ice that would elude a checker's stick or skate en route to a teammate.
"His pass is not like anyone else's," said Colin Campbell, who played part of a season with Gretzky in Edmonton, coached him with the Rangers and is the NHL's Senior Executive Vice President of Hockey Operations. "It flutters over, under and around things and lands on the stick blade he wants it to land on far too often to be an accident. A part of it is that he hides his intentions, the move he's likely to make, so well that just about everything is a surprise."
During Gretzky's seven-plus seasons in Los Angeles, he helped the Kings reach their first Stanley Cup Final, in 1993. He also would break a monumental record held by his dear friend Howe, who was in the house to witness it - on March 23, 1994, against the Vancouver Canucks in Los Angeles, he scored his 802nd goal to pass Howe as the NHL's all-time leader.
On Feb. 27, 1996, the Kings traded Gretzky to the St. Louis Blues, with whom he finished the season before signing as a free agent with the Rangers that summer. He spent three seasons in New York. Fittingly, he would retire in '99, playing his 1,487th NHL game on April 18, getting an assist and taking an emotional bow at Madison Square Garden.
Twenty days before that farewell game, Gretzky scored the 1,072nd and final goal of his professional career (including playoffs) to eclipse Howe's combined NHL and WHA total by one.
Along the way, he represented Canada in more than 60 games, including the 1998 Nagano Olympics, the World Cup of Hockey in 1996, four Canada Cup tournaments and both the IIHF World Junior and World championships.
Gretzky returned to the NHL in 2010 as managing partner of the Phoenix Coyotes, whom he would also coach, and he played a big role in assembling Canada's Olympic team in 2002 and 2006. In 2010 he was given the honor of being the final torchbearer into the opening ceremony at the Vancouver Olympics.
Gretzky would diversify, getting involved in many private business ventures that included restaurants, a winery and menswear, expanding his global brand while speaking his mind about the state of the game, his opinion always sought, his viewpoint always respected.
Gretzky is rightfully compared not so much to hockey players as to figures who transcended their sports -- Muhammad Ali, Pele, Jack Nicklaus, Secretariat.
"No player is bigger than the game," Gretzky said when he hung up his skates, which isn't true in his case.
Watching, often in awe, was Gordie Howe, who genuinely rejoiced when Gretzky passed him for the all-time goals lead, breaking a record that was thought to be untouchable.
"You don't get called The Great One unless you're something special and Wayne, it goes without saying, was a once-in-a-generation talent," Howe wrote in his 2014 autobiography "Mr. Hockey: My Story." "Watching his artistry on the ice was a treat for everyone who loves the game of hockey. If anyone had to bump me down the ladder, I'm happy that it was him. As I've always said since then, the way I see it, the record is in good hands."
by Stu Hackel / Special to NHL.com.
How does one sum up the long, kaleidoscopic career of Jaromir Jagr?
It seems as if his big smile, boyish charm, mullet and incredible skill -- not to mention his large posterior (he admits having trouble finding jeans that fit him) -- have always been with us. Even during his three Kontinental Hockey League seasons, we always kept an eye on him, just as he kept an eye on the NHL from afar, longing to return.
When he did -- renewed and rededicated -- the world seemed right again, one of hockey's greatest performers and personalities back on its largest, most demanding stage, even as he bounced from team to team, as if to spread the Gospel of Jagr to as many cities as possible.
He converted many. Late in his career, a group of wig-wearing Calgary-based fans even took to dressing in an array of Jagr sweaters -- Pittsburgh Penguins, Washington Capitals, New York Rangers, Philadelphia Flyers, Dallas Stars, Boston Bruins, New Jersey Devils, Florida Panthers, NHL All-Star, Czech Republic -- calling themselves "The Traveling Jagrs" and attending their hero's games in various NHL towns.
He has been largely adored but never ignored, even when fans have taken issue with him. More than 25 years after entering the NHL, Jaromir Jagr has never been irrelevant.
So how does one sum him up? Let us count the ways.
The simplest way is to review his resume.
Start with his trophies and awards. He has won the Stanley Cup twice; the Art Ross Trophy as League scoring champion five times; the Hart Trophy as the NHL's most valuable player; the Lester Pearson (now Ted Lindsay) Award as the League's most outstanding player, as voted by the players, three times; and the Bill Masterton Trophy for perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey. He has also made the NHL First All-Star Team seven times and the Second All-Star Team once.
Moving to the NHL's all-time leaderboard, he's second in points, third in goals and fifth in assists.
We can also take the long view: In 2013-14, he turned 42 and led the Devils in scoring; two seasons later, at 44, he led the Panthers in scoring and was a main factor in their first-place Atlantic Division finish. Jagr has joined a select group of players -- Hall of Famers Gordie Howe, Chris Chelios, Gump Worsley, Johnny Bower, Jacques Plante, Dominik Hasek, Tim Horton, Doug Harvey, Dave Keon, Johnny Bucyk, Mark Messier, and Igor Larionov among them -- who made a sizable impact well into their 40s.
"As a guy who played until he was 41, I understand just how tough it is to play in the league as an older player," Carolina Hurricanes general manager and former Penguins teammate Ron Francis told sportsnet.ca. "It's fantastic what he's able to do out there. And the fact is, it's tougher to play in the League in your 40s now than it was in my last years. The game's faster across the board."
Then there's the thoughtful approach. Here's what his then-coach with the Penguins, Scotty Bowman, told Sports Illustrated's E.M. Swift in 1992: "He's a different type of player than the League has seen in a long time. He has a lot of Frank Mahovlich in him. His skating style and strength make him almost impossible to stop 1-on-1. A lot of big guys play with their sticks tight to their bodies and don't use that reach to their advantage like Jaromir does.
"When Jaromir gets the puck, he's always thinking, 'Where can I go with it?' He reminds me of Maurice Richard in that way. They both played the off-wing, and both had so many moves I don't think either knew which moves they were going to do until they did them. Totally unpredictable."
Decades later, after having those words read back to him, Bowman found them still true. "That's him," Bowman said. "He hasn't changed much, except he plays more now from the blue line in. He's still very tough around the goal line. He likes to fish pucks behind the net and in the corner. He's got a good sense for the net. I mean, he seems to score goals and you say, 'How the hell did that go in?'
"There aren't many players I've ever seen who can hold the puck the way he does. He's really physically strong and -- even now, at 44, almost 45 -- you think he's going to be checked, he comes out of the corner and you think a guy is going to poke the puck off his stick, but it never happens."
Many of those qualities were on display on the goal that Bowman, and many others, can't forget, during the 1992 Stanley Cup Final against the Chicago Blackhawks, when Jagr was 20. Five minutes remained in Game 1 and Pittsburgh trailed by a goal late in the third period when Jagr picked off a Brent Sutter outlet pass and skated to the half-boards where, with his back to the wall, he was surrounded by three Blackhawks. He slid the puck between Sutter's legs and elastically oozed past him, extending his arm and stick to their full lengths to gather the puck back in again at the faceoff dot and, in the same motion, immediately swept it to his backhand, which left the oncoming defenseman Frantisek Kucera checking only air. Jagr took three strong strides through the slot, maneuvering around the roadblock created by teammate Shawn McEachern, who had tied up Igor Kravchuk trying to get at Jagr. Then, from 15 feet out, he ripped a backhander past Ed Belfour to tie the game.
One of his heroes and mentors, Mario Lemieux, who scored the game-winning goal in the final seconds of regulation, called it "the greatest goal I've ever seen." All these years later, it would still be a candidate for that honor.
How about sustained superiority? For four consecutive seasons (1997-98 to 2000-01), Jagr led the NHL in scoring. Only Wayne Gretzky (who did it eight straight years), Gordie Howe, Phil Esposito and Jagr have accomplished that.
Jagr had already shared the scoring title in 1994-95 with Eric Lindros, and he nearly won it again in 2005-06 when he finished with 123 points (and 54 goals, both Rangers records), two behind San Jose Sharks center Joe Thornton.
Can we talk about his dedication? The countless hours he spent improving his shot, using weighted sticks and forcing backup goalies to stay long after practice while he fired pucks at them? How about his regular midnight phone calls to his strength coach, beckoning him to the gym for workouts? Or his flipping on the lights at the practice rink while the rest of the world is asleep to skate solo? Or his mentoring of players like Claude Giroux, Scott Hartnell and Jakub Voracek in Philadelphia, Aleksander Barkov and Jonathan Huberdeau in Florida and Petr Prucha in New York.
And then there's the love for a player who largely has been one of hockey's most popular figures.
In the early '90s, long before "The Traveling Jagrs," Penguins fans learned he loved a certain brand of chocolate bar. He was flooded with them in the mail. "I eat them all," he said with a laugh.
A New Jersey brewery even launched a new Czech-style Pilsner beer, Jaromir Lager, with his likeness on the label.
Jagr, who was born Feb. 15, 1972, in Kladno, Czechoslovakia, began skating at 3 and played organized hockey before he started attending school. He also adopted a rigorous calisthenics program when he was 5 and has always maintained a furious workout regimen. He regularly played with kids as much as four years older.
"My father's idea," he told Sports Illustrated in 1992. "When I played against other 6-year-olds, I was great. When I played against 10-year-olds, I was average. He wanted me to play where I was average."
A hockey prodigy if there ever was one, he was so advanced by 12 that he started playing junior hockey. To get permission, his father and coaches had him tested by a prominent Prague doctor -- who judged his overall fitness as better than that of some professional athletes -- and then appealed to various hockey administrators to reclassify him to play with older boys. He scored 24 goals and 41 points in 34 games for the Kladno juniors that year and in his next three seasons averaged more than two points a game.
Officially, Jagr didn't begin playing professionally for the Kladno team in the top Czech league until he was 16. Unofficially, when he was still 15 in January 1988, he played for his country in an international tournament, scoring a goal and getting his first paycheck. "I was actually playing illegally," he wrote in his 1997 autobiography, "so there was no Jagr on the roster. I was hiding behind the name Zdenek Hrabe," who was an older pro on Kladno.
Pittsburgh selected him with the No. 5 pick in the 1990 NHL Draft after Pierre McGuire scouted him for the Penguins at the World Junior Championship in Helsinki, where Jagr had five goals and 18 points in seven games for Czechoslovakia, which won a bronze medal. "He was an amazing puck possession player," McGuire said years later. "For a player of that age to be that strong and dominate the puck really stood out. He played with Bobby Holik and Robert Reichel and the Russians had Pavel Bure, Sergei Fedorov and Alexander Mogilny -- and there really wasn't much separating those lines except Jagr's size and his ability to dominate the puck."
Unlike his mullet, which was shorn and returned, the desire to dominate never left.
"I don't think there was ever a time he didn't want the puck," Penguins teammate Robert Lang told sportsnet.ca. "I think he could be on his deathbed and he will still be like, 'Hey, give me the puck.'"
Jagr has said he'd like to play until he's 50. But as 2017 dawned, he had a new number in mind.
"Fifty-five. I just changed it. Because I feel so good," he said, laughing. "I'll go to 55."
Don't bet against him.
