CRANBERRY, Pa. -- The most important goal of Jaromir Jagr's career was undoubtedly his overtime winner against the Devils on May 2, 1999.
It was the opening round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, and the Penguins trailed 3-2 in the series entering Game 6 at the Civic Arena. Jagr had missed the last four games of the series after a Scott Niedermayer hit in the Devils' Game 1 victory injured Jagr's groin.
The Devils had a 2-1 lead late into Game 6. New Jersey's Sergei Brylin opened the scoring with the lone goal of the first period, and Martin Straka tied it up in the second period with a tip of an Alexei Kovalev shot. Niedermayer's power play deflection goal 4:34 into the third period gave the Devils the lead.
Jagr tied the game with 2:12 remaining in regulation, forcing overtime and setting the stage for his biggest goal.
Scott Stevens and Niedermayer were caught on the ice together during a change when Neidermayer tripped and fell along the boards. Neidermayer's fall set up a 2-on-1 between Straka and Jagr. Jagr's shot beat Martin Brodeur to give the Penguins the win and force Game 7:
“I lost my stick initially and I tripped and fell,” Niedermayer said afterward. “You can’t get beat there. I’m hoping the other guys are going to get the job done. But it’s definitely my responsibility not to let that guy beat me and go to the net and I didn’t do that.”
The series went back to New Jersey, and the Penguins eliminated the Devils with a 4-2 win. German Titov, Kovalev, Jan Hrdina and Straka scored that night, and Jagr picked up two assists. The Penguins went on to get eliminated by the Maple Leafs in six games in the second round.
There would be no deep Stanley Cup run that year. Jagr's overtime goal in Game 6 led to something even bigger. Not only was the game, series and season on the line that night -- the fate of the franchise might have been, too.
The Penguins had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy at the start of the season and co-owner Roger Marino had made trips to Kansas City, Houston, Oklahoma City and Las Vegas exploring a potential sale of the team. Mario Lemieux was in the process of working to acquire the team with the help of a group investors, and the NHL had expressed the possibilities of dissolving or relocating the Penguins if Lemieux's plan fell through.
As Jagr explained to NJ.com in 2012 as a member of the Devils, the gate revenue the Penguins got from the second round of the playoffs went a long way toward ensuring the team didn't go anywhere.
"If we would lose in the first round I think the team would move to Kansas City because they had no money," Jagr recalled. "We had to make the second round to get the (money for) the payments. ... That was probably my best game ever, I would say. My most important for sure. I'll probably never score a goal that important. Probably if I hadn't scored, the team wouldn't be in Pittsburgh right now. (Sidney) Crosby would be in Kansas City."
When the Penguins honor Jagr and raise his No. 68 to the rafters on Sunday against the Kings, that goal against the Devils will surely be a part of the pre-game tribute video.
There's one other Jagr goal that probably won't be part of any highlight reels spanning Jagr's career, but is another overtime goal that he previously referred to as the "most important" of his entire career. It wasn't a franchise-saving or even season-saving tally. It wasn't even in the playoffs. It was a regular-season, Dec. 4, 1993 goal against the Whalers in Hartford.
Pierre McGuire was head coach of the Whalers at the time. And having previously worked as an assistant coach with the Penguins, he was well aware of Jagr's habit for using a stick with an illegal curve. With 4.2 seconds remaining in regulation of a 6-6 game, McGuire took a gamble that Jagr was still using that illegal stick and challenged it. He was right, and Jagr got a two-minute penalty for the illegal stick, putting the Penguins on the penalty-kill to open overtime.
With Jagr's penalty expiring, Larry Murphy picked off a Whalers pass and got the puck up to Kevin Stevens. Stevens immediately passed the puck to Jagr, who was flying up the ice after exiting the penalty box. Jagr put it past Whalers goaltender Jeff Reese to give the Penguins a 7-6 win:
The goal capped off a four-point night for Jagr after three primary assists. But more importantly, he got the last laugh on McGuire.
“(McGuire) called it because he was the coach on our team,” Jagr said in the Hartford Courant that night. “He knows it. I just thought he’d call it when we were ahead, 6-5. He thought he had won the game already. But it wasn’t over yet. I would say, he lost the game. Pierre McGuire lost the game.”
"It was the most important goal in my career," Jagr continued. "Because, hey, Pierre McGuire thought he was the smartest guy after they called the thing. He thought the game was over, they were going to win the game. I said I want to win the game so bad. It’s a good feeling.”
One of those two "most important goals" obviously carries a little more weight than the other. But they're both examples of Jagr's skill and ability to step up when the stakes were highest, whether those "stakes" being to help save the team or just quiet a know-it-all former coach.
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