What weaknesses did Jaromir Jagr have in his prime?

[SeanMoneyHands]

Guess you could say from when he came into the NHL because he was immediately a top tier player and a dominant force. He was an elite puck handler, an elite playmaker, a great goal scorer with an elite shot (he just didn't shoot near enough as he was a pass first player), dominant along the boards and he was a truck on skates, very difficult to knock off the puck.

So what were his weaknesses that he didn't do too well? Or do you think he was a rare specimen and a flawless hockey player with no holes?

 

[GlitchMarner]

The only ones I can think of are defensive play and attitude (presumably). But no player is perfect. He was ridiculously good.

 

[Thenameless]

The only ones I can think of are defensive play and attitude (presumably). But no player is perfect. He was ridiculously good.

Spot on. This is exactly what I was going to say. He didn't work that hard on the defensive end, but if I were his coach, I could forgive that given how good he is at scoring.

The bigger problem for a coach/GM/owner was his prima donna attitude. While his play was always excellent, a poor attitude can destroy team chemistry, and ultimately cause a team to fail.

 

[seventieslord]

The only ones I can think of are defensive play and attitude (presumably). But no player is perfect. He was ridiculously good.

Pretty much this. But it should be mentioned that he was surprisingly good at not being scored on, because he tilted the ice so much thanks to his dominant possession game. He spent relatively little time in his own end. Of course we don't have possession numbers for him, but his GF/GA ratios were, like, all-time strong.

 

[MadLuke]

Yes I think there a bemol to put to the notion of bad defensive play, there is many ways to play defense and the very best one if you can is to have the puck, something Jagr is probably among the all time great at.

We only have old rangers Jagr in the latest but even Florida Panthers Jagr had impressive metric, if I remember correctly.

2007-2008 Jagr at even strength had a rangers best 59.13% CF, and a top 5 GF (best among big minutes forward).

In Florida:
Player Season Totals - Natural Stat Trick

Against among the top both in CF%, GF% (about Barkov/Huberdeau level), not a bad GA/60

Evrey season with the pens after 92-93 he was either the +/- leader or right there, would be interesting to have more advanced metric of is peak.

 

[Mrfenn92]

Only weakness I remember is his hair style

 

[Buffalowing1988]

Effort (for certain periods).

Outside of that...I don't have much. As stated above, he had it all when the game was going right. I don't think he was as great at certain things as others who really specialized. He wasn't the two-way forward that Fedorov was. He wasn't the sniper that Bure could be. He wasn't the best passer in the league. But he was capable of being top-5 in a lot of those things and he had the build that allowed him to thrive in the DPE.

 

[The Panther]

It's not a "weakness" to not be a balanced two-way forward -- if you're putting up Art Ross-type point totals every year, for about six years in row (plus other random seasons), you have already more than compensated for not being a great checker/penalty-killer. It's much, much harder and rarer to be a huge volume goal-producer, consistently, than to be a checker (which basically any NHL-er can do if they're so committed).

I also don't think of Jagr as having been a prima donna in his prime, except maybe at the very end in Pittsburgh when he seemed to make it all about himself for a short period. Prior to that, I would instead suggest that young-Jagr was one of those players who could get down on himself easily if things didn't go his way. He was kind of moody. But then again, it's not like he had long, 10-game stretches of slumping or anything either. He was always producing. So, maybe getting down on himself was a good thing.

I think maybe Jagr should have shot the puck a bit more, including from the outside. His tendency was to always try to beat guys to get in close to the net (that is, when he wasn't passing).

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Didn't backcheck

Basically uncoachable - meaning he played his style regardless of what the coach may have wanted

Poor effort when he wasn't happy

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Yes I think there a bemol to put to the notion of bad defensive play, there is many ways to play defense and the very best one if you can is to have the puck, something Jagr is probably among the all time great at.

We only have old rangers Jagr in the latest but even Florida Panthers Jagr had impressive metric, if I remember correctly.

2007-2008 Jagr at even strength had a rangers best 59.13% CF, and a top 5 GF (best among big minutes forward).

In Florida:
Player Season Totals - Natural Stat Trick

Against among the top both in CF%, GF% (about Barkov/Huberdeau level), not a bad GA/60

Evrey season with the pens after 92-93 he was either the +/- leader or right there, would be interesting to have more advanced metric of is peak.

23rd all-time in plus/minus with +322.

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

Gambling and women.

 

[BenchBrawl]

The major ones have been covered, now let's nitpick his offensive game: Did he have a great slapshot? I don't recall him scoring often with a powerful slapshot. One-timers maybe, but a long-winded full power slap shot? Granted it's not a "weakness" but possibly a part of his game that was lacking, if I'm even right.

 

[Professor What]

As several others have stated, there are various attitude-related issues that could be brought up, and that would be my criticism as well.

I'd say though, that while he was far from stellar defensively, I don't necessarily look at that as a "weakness." As others have stated, a team with Jagr was so much more potent offensively and could hold the puck so much better, that the lack of defensive prowess didn't really matter so much. Would I prefer a player to be better defensively? Sure. But when his offense is as good as Jagr's, I don't really care so much, and giving attention to defense could detract from his scoring output.

Wayne Gretzky wasn't so good defensively either, but nobody cares, for good reason. If you had him, you wanted him pumping out points. You're talking Orr and Howe level comparisons before that ever becomes a factor. Jagr wasn't that extreme, but the basic analogy still holds.

 

[quoipourquoi]

In fairness to Jagr, Mario Lemieux hated Kevin Constantine’s coaching style too. In fairness to Constantine, he took Jack Adams nominations both seasons in Pittsburgh. Ugly situation though.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

In fairness to Jagr, Mario Lemieux hated Kevin Constantine’s coaching style too. In fairness to Constantine, he took Jack Adams nominations both seasons in Pittsburgh. Ugly situation though.

Constantine wasn't even who I was thinking of when I mentioned clashing with the coach.

 

[vikash1987]

The biggest "weakness" I saw in Jagr during his prime was his attitude when it came to do-or-die situations in the playoffs.

This was a direct quote from Jagr during the '96 playoffs against Florida:

"Seventh games are killers. I hate to play seventh games. Everybody forgets what you did the series before or the game before. Everybody remembers Game 7. You can be a hero or a zero."

Which is ironic, considering he was one of the game's great clutch playoff scorers. (And I should know: he played my Devils five times in the playoffs as a Penguin.)

 

[Professor What]

In fairness to Jagr, Mario Lemieux hated Kevin Constantine’s coaching style too. In fairness to Constantine, he took Jack Adams nominations both seasons in Pittsburgh. Ugly situation though.

Making that messier still is the fact that it could be viewed as a coach getting the best out of undermanned teams or a superstar dragging said undermanned team along himself. The player is probably going to win the public perception nine times out of ten, and honestly, even with the attitude issues, if I'd had a chance as a GM to acquire Jagr at his best, I'd have had a hard time saying no, because it's hard to see the bad outweighing the good. I'm not saying that makes it right, but that's a tough spot for any coach to be in.

 

[Stephen]

My only nitpick of prime Jagr is the Pittsburgh Penguins of the mid to late 90s seemed like a real country club atmosphere suffering from some massive Stanley Cup hangover from their 1991, 1992 wins and the 1993 upset. Before the sell off, the Penguins were still stacked even with Lemieux drifting in and out of injury plagued seasons and retirement. Fire wagon hockey was not a problem, but you knew that the Penguins would be defeated by a harder working, more physical, more organized opponent and hotter goaltending (Florida, Philadelphia, New Jersey) and increasingly didn't belong in the class of Detroit, Colorado as skilled contenders even if they did make it out of the East. Where does Jagr fit into all of this? If wasn't quite as offensively inclined and bought into more of a team structure, I don't see why Pittsburgh should have gone into decline like they did.

 

[Stephen]

Constantine wasn't even who I was thinking of when I mentioned clashing with the coach.

Feels like the revolving door of coaches post Scotty Bowman like Eddie Johnston, Craig Patrick, Ivan Hlinka, Herb Brooks and Kevin Constantine would fit in under the category of substitute teacher than any serious coach during that period of Penguins history.

 

[GMR]

The ladies were his only weakness.

 

[quoipourquoi]

The ladies were his only weakness.

And he was theirs.


Did anyone here have the Jaromir Jagr peanut butter? Perhaps crunchiness can be added to the list with backchecking and coach killing.

 

[Gurglesons]

He didn’t buy into the hockey notion of team over individual. Is it wrong? I’m not sure, but given his success without Lemieux I think it is pretty obvious Jags was not a leader.

 

[Michael Farkas]

And he was theirs.


Did anyone here have the Jaromir Jagr peanut butter? Perhaps crunchiness can be added to the list with backchecking and coach killing.

Indeed.

I sure do. Unopened. Plus, some Czech jell-o box or something...I forget the details of that piece...

 

[Big Phil]

The major ones have been covered, now let's nitpick his offensive game: Did he have a great slapshot? I don't recall him scoring often with a powerful slapshot. One-timers maybe, but a long-winded full power slap shot? Granted it's not a "weakness" but possibly a part of his game that was lacking, if I'm even right.

Crosby either. Unlike Ovechkin who is a threat to score with a slapper/wrister as soon as he crosses the blue line. To be honest, I am willing to bet that because of Jagr's strength he could hammer a puck if he wanted to. Mario didn't wind up a heck of a lot either, although definitely more than Jagr. Maybe it just wasn't his style to do it that way. I never saw him as a guy who was looking for the heavy shot either.

I will say this about Jagr, there was the odd criticism of him that he could mail it in and that he couldn't carry a team without Mario on there. The funny thing is he took the Pens on his back for the entire 1999 season and then while he was hurt scored the overtime goal in Game 6 vs. New Jersey and then helped eliminate them. Despite 200 playoff points there is less playoff memories about him than you would assume, but that might be because he doesn't have that flagship playoff year that normally every other great player has.

 

[VanIslander]

Lack. Of. Effort.

As a Caps fan: end of thread.