Michael Farber, SI, 1999:
Last month Chicago Blackhawks assistant coach Denis Savard proclaimed Jagr "the best player in the game by a million miles," as if the subject were as closed as a team meeting.
...
"Jaromir should get a cut of every contract of everyone who plays with him before signing a new deal because half the money they're getting is due to him," Constantine says, despite his occasional differences with his star. "He makes it tricky for this organization. We have to ask oursast month Chicago Blackhawks assistant coachelves how good the guy is. Is he good because he plays with Jagr? Not taking anything anyway from Marty Straka, who's a helluva player, but none of the guys Jaromir plays with have a time-tested history of being major talents." There is no one riding shotgun for Jagr the way Joe Sakic does for Forsberg, John LeClair does for Lindros or Selanne does for Kariya. Pittsburgh has several forwards with a clue, but it also has more extras than there were in Titanic.
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"There are probably four ways to play Jagr, all of them wrong," Montreal assistant coach Dave King says. "He's the toughest player in hockey to devise a game plan against."
Michael Farber, SI, 2000:
Quote:
With 32 goals and 39 assists in 39 games through Sunday, Jagr was close to a 150-point pace and was leading the league in both categories, something not achieved outright since Wayne Gretzky did it 13 years ago. Night after night Jagr finds not only open ice but also the inherent joy of his sport. He dances and dazzles, getting seven points against the hapless New York Islanders in one game, derailing the powerful Detroit Red Wings with a goal and an assist in the next, and, in the match after that, twisting New Jersey Devils checker Claude Lemieux into a pretzel by putting the puck through Lemieux's legs at the Penguins' blue line and creating a three-on-two. Jagr, with sturdy haunches that make him all but impossible to bump off the puck, puts on That '80s Show for almost 82 games a season. He's setting hockey back more than 10 years.
"The game in the 1980s was played with the puck," Toronto Maple Leafs goalie Glenn Healy says. "In the '90s it became a game of often willingly losing possession, of dumping the puck in and moving the battle to other areas, such as behind the net and in the corners. Jagr is an '80s player because he holds on to the puck and tries to make plays. He won't give it up until there is absolutely no other play, which isn't often, because he has the ability to make something out of nothing, even a one-on-three. As a goalie you're always aware of Jagr's presence on the ice."
Jagr's scoring rampage in an era of constipated hockey has ended debate about who is the NHL's best player. "With no disrespect to the other guys," says New Jersey defenseman Ken Daneyko, a 15-year veteran, "you've got [Eric] Lindros, [Paul] Kariya, [Teemu] Selanne and [Peter] Forsberg here, and Jagr head and shoulders above them, up there." That assessment was implicitly endorsed by Gretzky last April when he blessed Jagr with a private word during the Great One's retirement ceremony. "Maybe that's why I play good right now," Jagr said last week, his face crinkling in merriment as he sat at his locker. "I don't want to make Wayne a liar."
Kostya Kennedy, SI, 2000:
Quote:
When SI asked NHL coaches in September, "Who is the best all-around player in the world?" 19 of the 26 respondents named Penguins right wing Jaromir Jagr. The other seven coaches fell into one of those hard-to-figure minorities, like the one dentist in five who does not recommend sugarless gum for his patients who chew gum.
should we compare them in 04 when Forsberg were the best in PPG and Jagr were 16th and didnt provide anything for his team except sulking and whining? Not to mention the area where Forsberg excelled (the playoffs) where he has a 1.13 in 151 games and Jagr 0,98 in 202 games.
