I mean when did this Lidstrom over Jagr business start? Yeah, Jagr was one of the more balanced scorers - as much a threat as a goal scorer as his competition on RW (Bure and Selanne) while also having incredible puck possession and creativity, but actor Scott Wolf from “Party of Five” announced Lidstrom’s name instead of Lubomir Visnovsky’s, so...
Alternate question. When did this Jagr over Lidstrom business start? Because I remember all sorts of "best European of all time" polls in the late 2000's, with the options always being Lidstrom-Hasek-Jagr. All three always had their supporters, but by my recollection, Jagr typically got the least support. A huge factor being his phoning it in during the Washington years and his departure for Russia. Basically, Jagr had a reputation for pouting and/or chasing the money.
It was only after Jagr came back, and showed his love for the game by playing until he was 132 years old, that this narrative went away (or at least got quieter). Esteem for Jagr started to climb again, and the Lidstrom-Hasek-Jagr debate became much more balanced.
Aside from Jagr's reputation rebounding, recent opinions on Lidstrom and Hasek have also taken some hits. For Lidstrom, the fact that Karrlson has shown that a true "offensive defenseman" is still viable in the NHL put some damper on Lidstrom's scoring prowess (which was often held as the high end of what was possible in the dead puck era). And Hasek's reputation has taken some beating with respect to his missed games/injury history, as well as a re-evaluation of Roy's 80's numbers. So if anything, I'd say Jagr's relative reputation compared to Hasek and Lidstrom is at an all time high right now.
I suspect there will be some ebb and flow with respect to all three players for some time. We're still less than a decade out from all three retiring, so their full historical context is still be written. But to answer your original question, I'd say the talks of Lidstrom being better than Jagr probably first became prominent sometime around 2008. That was the year Lidstrom won his 6th Norris (finishing top 2 in voting 9 of the previous 10 seasons) and captained the Wings to his 4th Stanley Cup. It was also the year Jagr went to Russia, and probably represented the lowest Jagr's reputation had been since he started winning scoring titles in the mid-90's.
It wasn't until 2014 or 2015 (when Jagr had been back in the NHL for a few years and was starting to show some all-time longevity) that Jagr's reputation started making a comeback. At least, that's been my impression of HF boards' general attitudes toward the three players over the last 15 years or so. Individual opinions have of course always varied, and it's certainly possible others have had a different take on the "general consensus."
*last second edit. Before hitting send, I figured I should take a look at the 2008 and 2009 rankings the HoH did, to see if my memory was just talking out of its ass. In 2008, Hasek = 15th, Jagr = 25th, Lidstrom = 26th. In 2009, Hasek = 12, Lidstrom = 17th, Jagr = 25th. So my memory's ass was pretty close with respect to the timing of when Lidstrom > Jagr. At least per HoH board voting.
