Oh come on.. especially on defense those teams were very bad.
Bolded is the important part here but also I assume that Lemieux had "it" so why is this one on Jagr?
Having "it" mostly boils down to team success just like being "clutch". I'm confident in saying Jagr did his part during his prime but his teams didn't have "it".
No, it really isn't. Jagr (and Francis) was super important in 1992 when Lemieux was out.
I mentioned they were very bad on D by the late 90's, but even in 98 were still a 1st place team in their division. It wasn't until after that the wheels started to really come off, until 2001, where they sort of rebounded for a year.
Because Lemieux overcame more obstacles (back injury so bad he needed help just to walk + cancer and the treatments that wreaked havoc on his body) to dominate in the postseason more often than not.
As I said, Jagr had a handful of nice runs, but there is very little in the way of him taking over a series or entire run. Whether it was when the Pens were loaded (earl to mid 90's) or otherwise (late 90's and beyond).
1992, Jagr was firmly behind Francis in production and Stevens as well. Plus i'd argue Murphy had a huge role, especially in the Rangers series. Lemieux was then back for 3 of the games vs Boston in the conference finals.
And that team was loaded up and down the bench. Even without Jagr, you still had Francis, Stevens, Tocchet, Trottier, Murphy, Ulf, Barasso, etc.
And look at the Cup final vs Chicago. Jagr had 2 goals (7th on team scoring in series) and managed to be a minus player in a sweep that saw the Pens score 15 goals.
I'm not at all convinced Jagr saved Pittsburgh during that Cup run. I mean there is no way to definitively know, but the Pens were very deep and had a lot of veteran leadership to cover up the handful of games Mario missed.
