Quote:
Originally Posted by doctajones428
The thing with Jagr is he came back to the NHL as a 40 year old and has been able to compete and produce at a relatively high level
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Howe came back out of retirement at age 45 and scored 100 points for the Houston Aeros in his first year back. He followed that with 5 more years in the WHA, including another 100-point season and two 90-point seasons. Granted, that was an easier league than the NHL and a higher-scoring era, but those are still impressive numbers, probably comparable to a 60-point season in the modern NHL. Not many WHA players scored more than Howe –Hedberg, Nilsson, Hull, a few others – and most of those were twenty years younger.
To top it all off, he came back to the NHL for his farewell season at age 51, played all 80 games, and scored a respectable 41 points.
If Jagr keeps on playing a while longer, he may pass Howe in my books for the #3 forward of all time. If he retires at the end of this season, I think I'll still have to give the nod to Howe.