The 2025 season will be the final one for 52-year-old Jaromir Jagr in playing professional hockey, as he told The Athletic’s Rob Rossi that he will be retiring at the end of the season.
It’s been over six years since his last appearance in the NHL, when he cleared waivers and the Calgary Flames assigned him to his hometown team, Rytiri Kladno in the WSM Liga. That was the end of his 24-year career in the NHL that spanned 1,733 games, but it wasn’t the end of his professional career. He has been Kladno’s majority owner since the 2011 season, where he played his first two seasons with the team in the Czechoslovak top league before he was drafted 5th overall by the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1990, and also played with his hometown team during the 1994, 2004-05, and 2012 NHL lockouts.
When he returned to the team during his age-45 season, Kladno was demoted from the top-level Czech Extraliga to the second-tier pro league, the WSM Liga. However, since he returned, Kladno has been in the Extraliga in five of the last eight seasons. He was a force and a big presence in helping them get back to the top level of ice hockey in Czechia in the 2020 season.
Now playing his 37th season of professional hockey, he is no longer the game-breaking force he once was, understandably so. He was limited to just 15 regular season games for Kladno last year, with four assists and a -4 rating. He did post an assist in Kladno’s Extraliga home opener while playing 14:26 of ice time, which was promising for his final season, especially given he tore his hamstring less than a month ago. Through four games this season, he has a goal and an assist.
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Jagr Has Built a First Ballot Hall of Fame Case
Jagr’s résumé needs no introduction to begin with. While he hasn’t hoisted the Stanley Cup in his best years, he did win it back-to-back in his first two seasons in the league, but he was still an absolute game-changer in the NHL’s most challenging era for offense. He won five scoring titles from 1998 to 2001, and won the Lester B. Pearson Award (now known as the Ted Lindsay Award) as the most outstanding player as chosen by his peers three times (1999, 2000, 2006).
Jagr has the longest pro hockey career out of any player to have played in the NHL, and has recorded the second-most points in NHL history, with 1,921. His 1,733 games played in the NHL rank 4th all-time, and in that span, he has put up the 4th-most goals (766) and 5th-most assists (1,155) in league history. He’s also a member of the Triple Gold Club, energizing Czechia to a gold medal in the 1998 Winter Olympics and winning a pair of World Championship gold medals in 2005 and 2010.
While Jagr has played for nine teams in his NHL career, he will always be remembered for his prime years playing for the Pittsburgh Penguins, who retired his jersey number on February 18th, 2024. He may likely return to Pittsburgh next season, as Rossi made a report back in May that the team was working to hire Jagr in a front office role whenever he is ready to hang up the laces.
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