Jagr Signs With The Flyers
Added on Jul 02, 2011 by J Merrill in
No Comments
Jaromir Jagr has signed with the Philadelphia Flyers for a one year reportedly worth 3.3 million dollars. The news came after a turbulent Thursday afternoon and Friday morning. On Thursday afternoon reports from the Penguins sounded like they were waiting for call the second Jagr landed in the states. The Red Wings were in the mix as well, but on Friday morning all that changed. Statements from both the Wings and the Penguins brass said that they had retracted their offers off the table to land Jagr.
Penguins GM Ray Shero said he was expecting to hear from Jagr’s agent before the 12 pm dead line when the Free Agent market opened up, bus said they recanted their offer when Jagr’s team wanted to negotiate. He said “We made what we thought was a very fair contract offer to Jaromir on Tuesday, based on his stated interest of returning to the Penguins. We made our best offer from the start, given our salary cap structure, in an attempt to facilitate a deal. But now, after several days, with an extended time frame for making a decision, and additional teams getting involved, we have decided to move in a different direction. It was never our intention to get involved in a free agent bidding war, and we have to focus on our team.”
Jagr is ninth all-time in the NHL in scoring with 1,599 points, just 42 behind Joe Sakic. He has played in 1,273 NHL games over 17 seasons, including the first 11 in Pittsburgh, where he won the Stanley Cup twice, the Hart Trophy, the Art Ross Trophy five times and the Lester B. Pearson Award four times. The last time Jagr played in North America was at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, where he was the flag bear for the Czech Republic. He won gold at the 1998 Olympics and bronze at the 2006 Games.
Jagr hasn’t played in the NHL since 2007-08 season, and has played in the KHL since. Now he has signed with the Flyers. Max Talbot has also signed a deal with the Flyers is said he is looking forward to playing with Jagr. He said “There’s a reason why there was so much interest and hype about him in the free agent market, because he’s a good player. He showed the world at the World Championship that he can definitely play. I remember playing against him and he was one of the guys that was always toughest to play against. He was so big and controlled the puck in the corner and made the right play. Just a great signing for the Flyers.”
