45-year-old Jagr wants 1 more year
SUNRISE, Fla. — Jaromir Jagr wants to play at least one more season in the NHL.
It’s unclear if any team wants him.
The 45-year-old forward, not exactly a regular poster on social media, took to Twitter on Thursday to say that no team has shown any interest in signing him when the NHL’s free-agent period begins on Saturday.
Jagr said he hasn’t gotten any feelers from clubs and that no team has taken his calls, either. He said that everywhere he looks, he’s seeing that free agents have gotten inquiries from 10 teams or more.
“Me0 calls,” Jagr wrote. “On the contrary, I’m trying to call them, and no ones picking up.”
Jagr followed up with a second tweet, showing a photo of himself on the phone many years ago and him looking at the phone now. He said in 1994, every team called him .
It was a rare method for Jagr to utilize when speaking out. He’s been on Twitter for nearly six years, and averages about one tweet per month. And it may have worked — not long after he tweeted, Florida Panthers general manager Dale Tallon said he’s spoken with Jagr’s agent, Petr Svoboda.
“I just talked to his agent before I came on the stage and I’m going to talk to him again tomorrow,” Tallon said, as he sat with new coach Bob Boughner and CEO Matthew Caldwell on the stage at the Panthers’ Summer Summit meeting with fans. “And we’ll see how it goes.”
When Tallon said that, a few fans started chanting “Jagr! Jagr! Jagr!”
Jagr has spent the past 2 1/2 seasons with the Panthers. Jagr has also been skating at the team’s practice facility, and was there earlier Thursday. Svoboda did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Jagr had 16 goals and 30 assists for Florida last season, appearing in all 82 games. He’s No. 2 on the NHL’s all-time points list, along with being No. 3 in goals, No. 4 in games and No. 5 in assists.
He is the oldest free agent, by far, available this summer — Shane Doan and Matt Cullen are next, both 40. The Panthers lost forwards Jonathan Marchessault and Reilly Smith to Vegas as part of the Golden Knights’ expansion draft maneuvers. Take Marchessault out of the mix, and Jagr would be Florida’s third-best returning scorer next season behind Vincent Trocheck and Aleksander Barkov.
Jagr was the NHL’s MVP in 1999, is a five-time scoring champion and helped Pittsburgh win the Stanley Cup back-to-back in 1991 and 1992. He’s also helped his native Czech Republic win Olympic gold in 1998 and gold at the world championships in 2005 and 2010.
It has already been an offseason of change for the Panthers, who turned control of hockey operations fully back to Tallon in April and hired Boughner earlier this month as the franchise’s 15th coach in 24 seasons.
