Patrick Kane is returning to Chicago, signing a two-year deal to go back to the Blackhawks. It’s a nice way for him and the team to presumably put the final chapter on his career and go full circle for a Hall of Fame run.
It also made me think of how that was denied for the Penguins with Jaromir Jagr.
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This summer are some round anniversary figures for Jagr and the Pens. It was 25 years ago this month that his stint in Pittsburgh came to an end in 2011 via a trade to Washington that ended up being a real lose-lose situation for both sides.
Then, 15 years ago, Jagr and the Pens flirted with the idea of a reunion in the summer of 2011. The star forward, then 39, was looking to return to the NHL after playing three years in a self-imposed exile to the KHL. The Pens had prime Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin and were looking to win more Stanley Cups.
Everything looked perfect, but the pieces didn’t fit. Jagr, ever peculiar, had desires the Pens couldn’t match – Jagr always preferred playing with a right-handed center, both Crosby and Malkin are lefties. It is also out there that while some within the higher-ups in Pittsburgh were eager for Jagr’s return, then GM Ray Shero (in the midst of a cap crunch) was not one of them. Shero made an offer to Jagr that was significantly lower than what he received from at least two other NHL teams that further soured feelings.
At this point, the whole thing feels like a fever dream. The Pens even went so far as to publicly retract their contract offer to Jagr when through the negotiation it became apparent the two sides weren’t going to reach an agreement. The rumors and anticipation had grown so highly that this kind of statement was deemed necessary to break the news themselves that a reunion wasn’t going to happen.
Could you even imagine something like that these days? Obviously the internet and social media existed 15 years ago, but not to the same extent of how that news would rattle around cyberspace today.
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In the end, Jagr went with the highest offer (and a right handed center) to resume his NHL career. It turned out to be a $3.3 million contract with, of all teams, the Philadelphia Flyers and Claude Giroux. Jagr would go onto score 54 points in 79 games with the Pens’ biggest rivals and be on the team that eliminated Pittsburgh in the playoffs in 2012.
From there, Jagr became even more nomadic in his 40’s, playing in small bursts for all of Dallas, Boston, New Jersey and Florida before finally wrapping up his storied NHL career in Calgary for the 2017-18 season. The idea of Jagr wanting to return to Pittsburgh, or the Pens wanting him back as a player, were closed off permanently after 2011 without much real consideration of either side.
Fortunately, there was a happy ending to the whole thing. Jagr has stayed busy with the Czech league team in Kladno that he had an ownership stake in, still remaining an occasional part-time player through 2025-26 (six games at the age of 53). That distance made a formal reconciliation take time, which finally happened in February 2024 when Jagr’s famous No. 68 was taken up to the rafters in Pittsburgh and the organization and fans could give him the proper send off.
That reunion had to happen after the fact in Pittsburgh, which has to feel a little bit of jealously and envy that Chicago fans will get a second chapter on the ice with one of their franchise’s best ever players when Patrick Kane returns to play.
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