Eh, with Jagr… I think it is actually

If Jagr comes back next year with a pay cut, he should basically start fading out of the picture slowly the same way other captains have done in the past. Look at Mike Modano in Dallas… they got Brad Richards and they have Mike Ribiero so they moved the Modano-Lehtinen down as their veteran 3rd line.

Its not “first line or retirement” here…if he takes a pay cut he can make a pretty dam good 3rd scoring line. But either way, finding Drury & Gomez need to have big scoring wingers because they are the future of the team, not Jagr.

Even tomorrow nights game really doesn’t either. Damn. So they’ve become pretty importnant games(the next 2). We need to keep pace with the top 5 teams.

Sather has no reason, at this point, to sound anything other than confident in Jaromir Jagr, and assured of wanting him back.

The Rangers are gearing up for a run in the playoffs, and Jagr will be expected to do what he has done in the later half of this season in the playoffs. If there is a chance that Jagr (pettulent and moody, very Czech) would be affected by management wavering on wanting him back then Sather would need to say what he did for strategic reasons.

Whether or not he actually does want Jagr back depends in a very big way on how the Rangers do this year.

If they make it to the conference finals, Sather can bring back almost the whole team, with the older players loosing some money, the younger players (avery, dawes, rozsival, ect) making more, while the older players miss a step, the younger ones take more than a step forward.

If they make it just as far as they did list year, then its a toss up. Jagr, Straka, Shanahan could be back, but probably only one or at most two would be back, with a strong possibility of none being back.

If they bow out in the first round, none of the three would likely be back. This is probably what Jagr has in mind. He understands that Sather may have more reasons to say what he did than actually wanting to resign him. If he were in that place, he wouldn’t resign himself if the Ranger’s don’t at least make the conference finals.

Jagr may be thinking that he is playing for a contract, with the qualifier being a conference finals birth.

Good lord!

“By Katie

March 14, 2008 12:01 AM | Link to this

BREAKING NEWS: If you sit in Sections 319 or 320 for hockey games at PHILIPS ARENA, it has now been additionally confirmed that you are indeed DUMBER THAN Michael Vick’s bleeding, VD-saturated rectum.”

I take your point, and agree that Lundqvist’s puck handling is sub-par, to be generous. But I choose him ten times out of ten over DP for two big reasons: He is technically more sound, and his temperment is far superior.

Agravaine

Late thank you for providing Orr’s playoff stats from yesterday.

Not only CAN this team win without Jagr, but the sooner they realize this, the better.