Thursday's hockey: At 52, Jagr still going strong; Zadina has career-high 4 points
Kladno, Czech Republic — The legendary mullet is gone. He’s not as quick as he used to be. And yet the way Jaromir Jagr moves on the ice belies his age and evokes memories of his glory days in the NHL.
Strong on the puck, tough to beat by the boards, precise in his passing and always in the right place to get involved in the play – Jagr, who turns 52 on Thursday, showed many of his resolute skills in a recent training session with his hometown club Kladno, for which he serves in dual roles as player and owner.
In his 36th season as a professional ice hockey player, Jagr will take a short break from the Czech league this week and travel to Pittsburgh, where he made his name in the NHL and where his No. 68 Penguins jersey will be retired at a ceremony on Sunday.
Then it’s quickly back to the Czech Republic to prepare for the next game with the Kladno Knights, who are struggling in last place in the domestic league after a 17-game losing streak.
"The major issue is that (playing) is more demanding physically at my age,“ Jagr told The Associated Press in a rare interview after practice in Kladno. “If you want to play at a certain level you have to prepare, go to training, and the process of recovery is much longer.”
He said a sense of obligation for the team, which will almost certainly face a playoff to avoid relegation from the Czech league, is what keeps him going.
“A responsibility to the fans, a responsibility to the town, a responsibility to the club, that’s all,” Jagr said, seated in a skybox overlooking the rink at Kladno’s recently renovated arena.
Kladno, a former coal-mining town with a population of about 70,000 just west of the Czech capital, Prague, used to be a hockey powerhouse in Cold War-era Czechoslovakia. Local players made it to the NHL including Frantisek Kaberle Jr., Tomas Kaberle and Jakub Voracek. But no one made it bigger than Jagr, who won two Stanley Cups with the Penguins and amassed more points in the NHL than anyone except Wayne Gretzky.
Jagr was 16 when he debuted for Kladno on Sept. 13, 1988. He scored his first goal against Pardubice the following month, beating another future NHL star, goaltender Dominik Hasek.
He arrived in Pittsburgh as a well-mulleted and somewhat mysterious teenager in the fall of 1990, realizing his dream of playing alongside Penguins superstar Mario Lemieux.
Jagr won the Calder Trophy as the NHL top rookie in 1991 while helping the Penguins win their first Stanley Cup. Pittsburgh won it again the following year, with Jagr scoring the tying goal late in the third period of Game 1 of the final against Chicago, seven seconds of brilliance that Lemieux called one of the greatest goals he’s ever seen.
There would be many more goals – 766 of them in the regular season, fourth all-time – as part of a staggering 1,921 points, five Art Ross Trophies given to the league leading scorer and one Hart Trophy in 1999 as the NHL most valuable player.
After nearly 11 years in Pittsburgh, the financially stressed Penguins traded him to rival Washington in 2001. He spent the next 16 years essentially as an NHL vagabond, piling up points but unable to find a place where he could reproduce the postseason magic that defined his early days in Pittsburgh.
The second half of his NHL career included a brief flirtation with a return to the Penguins in 2011 only to sign with rival Philadelphia. His last stop in the NHL was the Calgary Flames which released him in 2018.
After three decades abroad, Jagr returned to Kladno to finish his career where it started. His father, a businessman, stepped in to rescue the team during the turbulent transition from communism to a market economy in the 1990s, when its main sponsor, the local steelworks, faced bankruptcy.
Jagr runs the team and plays for it – and he seems to prefer the latter. Despite the physical toll of playing top-level hockey as a fiftysomething, he said it offers a welcome break from chasing sponsors and dealing with other administrative challenges.
“For me, it’s more like going there to get some rest on the ice, to relax, to hide from all other problems,” he said. “At trainings I can think about something different and forget about the problems I have to deal with.”
Thursday's NHL games
(At) Toronto 4, Philadelphia 3 (OT): Auston Matthews had a natural hat trick in the second period and William Nylander scored 54 seconds into overtime.
Matthews pushed his NHL-leading goals total to 45, completing his fifth hat trick of the season and 12th of his career in a 7:49 span in the second period. He’s on a 71-goal pace through 51 games, looking to become the first NHLer to hit 70 since Teemu Selanne and Alexander Mogilny each had 76 in 1992-93.
Ilya Samsonov made 29 saves. Mitch Marner had three assists, and Timothy Liljegren had two.
Travis Konecny had a goal and an assist for Philadelphia. Travis Sanheim and Garnet Hathaway also scored and Samuel Ersson stopped 24 shots.
San Jose 6, (at) Calgary 3: Ex-Red Wing Filip Zadina had two goals and two assists for a career-high four points in San Jose's victory over Calgary.
Luke Kunin also scored twice, Justin Bailey had a goal and two assists for his first career multi-point game and Mikael Granlund added a goal. MacKenzie Blackwood made 31 saves.
Nazem Kadri, Mikael Backlund and Andrei Kuzmenko scored for Calgary and rookie Dustin Wolf stopped 25 shots. The Flames have dropped two straight and have lost five of their last six at home.
(At) N.Y. Rangers 7, Montreal 4: Chris Kreider scored a hat trick, Adam Fox had four assists and Jonathan Quick made 31 saves as New York downed Montreal to match a season high with their sixth straight victory.
Mika Zibanejad added a goal and two assists for the Rangers, who also got goals from Will Cuylle, Vincent Trocheck and Kaapo Kakko. Artemi Panarin added three assists.
The Rangers, who equaled their season best for goals, scored four times in 4:10 during the second period after Montreal took a 1-0 lead in the first.
Cole Caufield had two goals for Montreal, which has lost three of four. Jake Evans and Juraj Slafkovsky also scored for the Canadiens.
Florida 4, (at) Buffalo 0: Anthony Stolarz stopped 45 shots for his seventh career shutout and Florida became the 11th NHL team to win 10 consecutive road games with a win over Buffalo.
Carter Verhaeghe opened the scoring midway through the first period and added an empty-netter. Anton Lundell scored by tipping in Matthew Tkachuk’s point shot on a delayed penalty with 2:44 left in the second period.
Ryan Lomberg followed Verhaeghe’s empty-netter with a goal with 11 seconds remaining.
Florida extended its franchise-record road winning with the run that is tied for the sixth-longest among NHL teams, and two short of matching the record held by Detroit (2005-06) and Minnesota (2014-15).
Seattle 4, (at) Boston 1: Matty Beniers (Michigan) had a goal and two assists as Seattle concluded a five-game road trip with a win over Eastern Conference-leading Boston.
Jordan Eberle, Eeli Tolvanen and Jared McCann also scored for Seattle. Joey Daccord stopped 36 shots to snap his three-game losing streak.
Boston has dropped three straight and four of five, with all the defeats coming at home. David Pastrnak scored for the Bruins, and Jeremy Swayman made 22 saves.
Dallas 9, (at) Nashville 2: Sam Steel scored 35 seconds after the puck dropped, and Dallas scored four goals in the first 16 minutes on the way to a rout of Nashville.
The Stars' Matt Duchene scored two goals against his old team. Another former Nashville player, Craig Smith, scored in the early flurry for the Central Division leaders.
Wyatt Johnson made it 4-0 at 15:53 as he finished with two goals and two assists. Tyler Seguin and Ty Dellandrea had a goal and two assists apiece as Dallas won its third straight. Miro Heiskanen also had a goal.
Cole Smith and Tommy Novak scored for Nashville.
(At) St. Louis 6, Edmonton 3: Robert Thomas and Jake Neighbours each had a goal and two assists and St. Louis beat Edmonton for the team's eighth win in 10 games.
Jordan Binnington made 36 saves, highlighted by two dazzling saves on Zach Hyman during an Edmonton power play in the first period.
Jordan Kyrou, Torey Krug and Pavel Buchnevich each added a goal and an assist and Brandon Saad also scored for the Blues.
Leon Draisaitl, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Corey Perry scored for Edmonton and Connor McDavid had three assists.
Pittsburgh 4, (at) Chicago 1: Sidney Crosby scored twice, Reilly Smith and Bryan Rust added goals, and Pittsburgh beat Chicago to snap a three-game losing streak.
The Penguins had lost to Minnesota, Winnipeg and Florida in succession, but controlled their third road game in four starts from the outset.
Crosby's first goal came just 15 seconds into the game.
Blackhawks star rookie Connor Bedard had an assist in his return after a 14-game absence because of a broken jaw. After a sluggish first period, he set up Phillipp Kurashev with a nifty pass through traffic midway through the second. Kurashev dumped it past sprawling goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic.
Smith made it 2-1 at 12:40 of the first, beating Soderblom with a wrist shot on the glove side.
Anaheim 5, (at) Ottawa 1: Mason McTavish scored twice against his hometown team to help Anaheim beat Ottawa.
The 21-year-old McTavish grew up in nearby Carp, Ontario. He has 15 goals this season, his third with the Ducks.
Frank Vatrano, Pavel Mintyukov and Cam Fowler also scored for Anaheim. John Gibson stopped all 15 shots he faced through two periods before leaving because of an upper-body injury. Lukas Dostal made 18 saves in he third period.
Claude Giroux scored for Ottawa and Joonas Korpisalo made 15 saves.
(At) Tampa Bay 6, Colorado 3: NHL points leader Nikita Kucherov had two goals and an assist as Tampa Bay beat Colorado.
Kucherov picked up his 93rd point on a goal that made it 4-3 at 8:13 of the third.
Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon, second in points, increased his total to 89 with two assists.
Steven Stamkos, Brayden Point, Anthony Cirelli and Nick Perbix also scored for the Lighting, who got 28 saves from Andrei Vasilevskiy.
Defenseman Bowen Byram scored twice for the Avalanche and Artturi Lehkonen added a goal.
L.A. Kings 2, (at) New Jersey 1: Quinton Byfield scored on a power play with 5:37 left and Los Angeles rebounded from a seven-goal loss to beat New Jersey.
Anze Kopitar scored a short-handed goal and David Rittich made 27 saves as the Kings won for only the fifth time in their last 20 games (5-9-6).
Tyler Toffoli scored on a power play for New Jersey, which had won two in a row. Nico Daws was outstanding in goal, making 27 saves, including sensational glove stops on Kopitar in the first period and Adrian Kempe in the second.
Blue Jackets fire GM Kekalainen
The Columbus Blue Jackets fired general manager Jarmo Kekalainen on Thursday, ending his time on the job ahead of another crucial trade deadline for the struggling club.
President of hockey operations John Davidson made the call midway through Kekalainen’s 11th full season on the job and with just over three weeks to go before the March 8 deadline. The 57-year-old Kekalainen, who is from Finland, was the third-longest tenured GM in the NHL.
"This is one of the hardest days I have had in my career as Jarmo is a friend, someone I have a great deal of respect for and someone who has done a lot of good things during his time here,” Davidson said in a statement. “While the future of our club is bright, our performance has not been good enough, and it is time for a fresh perspective as we move forward.”
Davidson and the hockey operations team will assume GM duties on an interim basis until a full-time replacement is hired. Davidson said at a news conference in Columbus the focus will be primarily on external candidates and predicted an exhaustive search.
Firing Kekalainen now comes with the Blue Jackets in last place in the Eastern Conference and on track to miss the playoffs for a fourth consecutive year. They could be sellers at the deadline, with center Jack Roslovic set to be an unrestricted free agent and a few others potential trade candidates.
Davidson and assistant GMs Josh Flynn and Basil McRae will be making those decisions, not Kekalainen.
“We have a lot ahead of us,” said Davidson, who mentioned his own absence because of back surgery when asked about why this happened now. “We’ve had an up-and-down, at times turbulent, season. I just think that going forward, now was the time to turn that page and go forward with all the decisions that we have to make that are ahead of us.”
It has also been several months since the botched hiring of coach Mike Babcock, who was forced to resign on the eve of training camp for his conduct with players.
Ownership, after Kekalainen and Davidson named Pascal Vincent coach following the Babcock fiasco, said in September there would not be any front office changes at that time. But the heat was clearly on given the lack of success since the franchise's last playoff appearance in 2020.
Team president Mike Priest, also at the news conference with Davidson, defended the owners' involvement in the process and the timing of this move.
“You could pick a number of different reasons: You don’t want to put him in a bad position for trade deadline where he can’t do his job,” Priest said. “Those are issues that you can come to. You can debate whether it’s a good time of year or not, but when decisions are made and respect to the people, then we’re going to make that decision and we’re going to be honest about it.”
Michigan-area hockey games this week
Thursday
▶ Vancouver 4, Red Wings 1
Friday
▶ Cleveland at Grand Rapids, 7 (AHL/106.9/1300)
▶ Michigan at Penn State, 7 (Big Ten)
Saturday
▶ Red Wings at Calgary, 4 (BSD/97.1)
▶ Grand Rapids at Rockford, 8 (AHL/96.1)
▶ NTDP U17s at Muskegon, 7:10
▶ Michigan at Penn State, 6 (Big Ten)
Sunday
▶ Muskegon at NTDP U18s, 4
Tuesday
▶ Oilers 8, Red Wings 4
▶ Cleveland 3, Grand Rapids 2 (SO)