4
GREEBURGH, N.Y. — With his team facing elimination and trying to cope with injuries, the usually irrepressible Jaromir Jagr turned introspective yesterday.
If the New York Rangers cannot beat the Pittsburgh Penguins tonight in the fourth game of their second-round NHL playoff series, their season will be over. And so may the NHL careers of Jagr, 36, who has been the Rangers' best player, and Brendan Shanahan, 39. Both can become free agents on July 1, and rumours abound that Jagr may wind up in the Russian Superleague, while retirement beckons for Shanahan.
Jagr has played coy about his plans and was asked yesterday about the statement he made after Tuesday's 5-3 loss, which put the Rangers down 3-0 in the Eastern Conference semi-final. "This might be my last game," Jagr said of tonight's game. "Let's make it special."
Jagr looked pensive after yesterday's practice, sitting at his stall in the dressing room with Einstein, Walter Isaacson's biography of the great scientist, ostentatiously displayed on the shelf above his head. When someone asked about the last-game business, he sidestepped it.
"I'm talking about the series, not my hockey career," he said. "I'm 36, feeling like 25. I don't think age is important unless you worry about it."
But then he began talking about the demands hockey places on older players, about how older players have to work harder every year to keep up. And about how the fans look at him now and still see the 25-year-old superstar who could score 50 goals and run up 100 points at will. But the only way for older players to survive is to pick their spots during the regular season, conserving what remains of their energy and talent for the playoffs.
"You have to understand, there's a million people criticizing you for whatever reason, but look back on hockey history - how many guys were able to play on some kind of level at my age?" he said. "You know, 80 games. It's not like you don't want to. Of course, I wish I could play every regular-season game like I do in the playoffs, but it's impossible to stay for over 20 years on some kind of level because people remember you on some level, and if you don't produce on that level, even if you're better than some other guys, they're still going to say you don't have it any more.
"But look at even the greatest players. Look at Wayne Gretzky. Did he score 200 points at age 35? I don't think so. Was he better than 70 or 80 of the players in NHL? Yes he was.
"And [fans] are expecting those players to play all the time at that level, with the same emotion and everything, but it's impossible. I think when guys are getting older, you have to pick the times that are important for you. If you're going to work hard 365 days a year - I mean, really hard because you have to work harder than the young guys to keep up with them - at some point you're not going to be able to play at all. You have to pick the right times. And sometimes, even if people are criticizing you for not playing great, you know at the right time you're going to be good.
"You have to know what's important."
Jagr, who had 71 points in his 17th NHL season, down 25 from last season, leads the Rangers in playoff scoring with 12 points in eight games. That would not have been possible, he said, if he played every regular-season game like a playoff game.
"Maybe I can score 120 points and 50 goals," he said. "But no one can guarantee me that I'm going to be healthy for the playoffs when it matters the most. Maybe I still can do it, but what if I hit the wall right now? It's for nothing."
No one expected the Rangers to be swept in this series and they have outplayed the youthful Penguins for long stretches. But the Penguins are much better where it matters in close playoff games, on special teams, and just maybe in one other area.
"To win the Cup, you have to be good, and lucky," Jagr said. "It's all about timing. One bad injury and you might have a good team but you lose, and then the next year everybody is leaving because they are free agents."
Who knows, Jagr said, luck could strike for him tonight.
"You know, if you can do something special, everybody's going to talk about it forever," he said. "People dream about that stuff, and so do I. It's never happened to me."
