[Tinordi]

Air Yanover had a nice little article on signing Jagr a month ago at Flames Nation:

https://flamesnation.ca/2017/07/12/j...-lot-of-sense/

s Jagr still a top line forward? Well, this past season he spent by far the most even strength ice time with Aleksander Barkov, and Jagr is a genetic freak even by professional athlete standards, so it’s entirely possible he is.

He can clearly still score; the only time he’s put up fewer than 40 points since his return to the NHL was in the lockout season, and even then he still scored 35. He’s a possession driver, putting up a 54.94% 5v5 CF in 2016-17 (+6.25% rel) albeit with 35.09% offensive zone starts. Alongside Barkov, they were a 57.0% CF duo, with 56.9% offensive zone starts. Separated, Jagr was 51.3% CF (50.5% offensive zone starts), while Barkov was 41.2% CF (34.1% offensive zone starts).

So Jagr can clearly drive play if he’s put in a position to succeed, and help boost a high-end young teammate do the same. But what of those zone starts?

To put them in perspective, this past season Johnny Gaudreau had 43.35% offensive zone starts, and Sean Monahan had 40.63%, so that’s not exactly an issue. If Jagr is expected to be a top line player, he’d almost certainly be alongside Gaudreau and Monahan – two 60+ point young forwards – and considering the way Glen Gulutzan deploys his forwards, Jagr would undoubtedly be put in a position to succeed. From there, all he’d have to do is keep up with a couple of players in their early 20s, which he’d already been doing during his time in Florida.