Jaromir Jagr enjoying playing hockey now more than ever

Watching Jaromir Jagr is a spectacle in itself, even viewing him partake in a morning skate is something to behold as he did prior to the Florida Panthers’ 6-1 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday.

While the merits of an early practice session on game day have been questioned, the 44-year-old was on the ice even though he wasn’t required to be.

Florida Panthers coach Gerard Gallant has given Jagr carte blanche to prepare however he wants.

“I don’t coach him, he does thing,” said Gallant, whose final five NHL seasons as a player overlapped Jagr’s entry into the league in 1990-91. “He plays a team system and he knows how we want him to play. He comes to the rink and if he wants to take a day off, he takes it, he doesn’t take many of them, he gets himself ready to play games.

“You don’t gotta coach Jaromir Jagr.”

This is the respect one gets when they have played 1,646 NHL games, scoring 750 goals and the only people ahead of them on the league’s all-time list in that department are Gordie Howe and Wayne Gretzky.

More than anything, it appeared that Jagr uses the skate-around as a chance to get a feel for his weaponry.

Two of his CCM Ribcor Rekoner Grip sticks, black with green trim, were leaning in a corner of the Panthers bench, the rest of the players had theirs in the usual spot, a rack against the back glass.

At the side boards in front of the gate, he mentally weighed his remaining twig, then gauged the curve by placing it on the dasher before deciding the time was right to join his comrades skating laps around the ice. Over the next few minutes he took a couple of shots and then returned to his cache, gently replacing one stick with another.

A few feet away, he spotted two centres, Vincent Trocheck and Aleksander Barkov, practicing faceoffs. Gliding over, the right winger looked on with a giant grin as one of the assistant coaches dropped puck after puck.

Jagr decided to give it a couple of tries himself.

“He’s never taken faceoffs,” said Trocheck, who momentarily left the dot and allowed Jagr an opportunity to go head-to-head against Barkov. “That is the first time he’s stepped in, ever.”

In his 22nd NHL season, the league’s third all-time leading scorer is still finding ways to have fun.

“He’s a huge man with an unbelievable skill set, so even as his skills have diminished, he’s still better than most of us, so that’s how good he was,” said Leafs head coach Mike Babcock. “Not many guys love the game as much as Jags does to keep playing, they get on with life. This is his life.”

Jagr has always been considered an enigma. Known for supreme discipline, focus and rigorous (see: unconventional) training habits, at times he is jovial, even candid. In other instances he is abrupt and distant — if he agrees to talk at all.

When he does, unlike many athletes, he is not prone to cliches. Before giving an answer, Jagr takes time to absorb most questions.

“I love everything about (hockey),” said Jagr, sitting in his stall after morning skate. “(The) things you can get better (at). If you try something (new).”

After all these years of playing professional hockey (he also played in the KHL for three seasons from 2008-11 and several other European leagues), Jagr is still excited about improving and exploring.

This isn’t news to those that have had a chance to peer behind the curtain.

Former goalie Kevin Weekes, Jagr’s teammate with the Rangers from 2005-07, recalls the times he would change into a tracksuit and toque after practice and return to the ice to shoot on him.

“He would grab his sticks and say, ‘Let’s go, you and me,’ ” Weekes recalled. “What I didn’t know was at night, he would drive all the way back out to the practice facility and practice again on his own.”

Thanks to social media, his nighttime gym sessions are now common knowledge and further add to his mystique.

Hockey Hall of Fame-inducted defenceman Chris Chelios is uniquely qualified to speak on the adjustments one has to make to be able to play effectively into their mid-forties. He is the second-oldest player behind Gordie Howe to play an NHL game and retired in 2010 at age 48.

The three-time Stanley Cup winner and veteran of 26 seasons marvels at Jagr’s ability to make a meaningful contribution as a forward at this stage in his career.

“I was a defenceman so it was a lot easier to fall into the role I did at his age, just to be a supporting cast for the young guys that were here and not depended upon for any offense. What he is doing to me is amazing at his age,” Chelios told Yahoo Sports.

“His size, his reach, how he protects the puck, he’s a finisher, I won’t say that he is systemized, he is lucky he has got a coach that allows him to play like he always has and you can do that because the good outweighs the bad. He doesn’t need a lot of chances to finish whether he is setting up a play or finishing off a goal.”

Last season, Jagr had 27 goals playing with Barkov and Jonathan Huberdeau, the most he netted in one campaign since scoring 30 for the Rangers in 2006-07. However, through 17 games this season, he hasn’t enjoyed the level of production he is used to.

Playing again on the top line with Barkov and Jonathan Marchessault, who has subbed in for Huberdeau after he sustained a severed achilles tendon in the preseason, Jagr has just one goal and six points despite 38 shots (tied for fifth-most on the team).

Jagr’s average ice-time has also dropped to 16:09 per game, almost a minute less than last season.

“Things will naturally slow you down as you get older,” he said. “It’s like life, when you’re 18 you are driving the car differently than when you are 40. It’s the same thing in hockey, you play differently when you’re 18 then when you are 40.”

Jagr may not get to pucks as quick as he once did but he is very strong with the puck and positions himself well. He remains a fixture on the Panthers’ top power-play unit.

When Chelios turned 40, he started to adjust by taking on a less prominent role in order to continue playing. Following his 2002 Stanley Cup victory with the Detroit Red Wings, he played reduced minutes and didn’t contribute to the power play, the times that he did, a forward was put out with him as a fail-safe.

“I could have easily stepped out at the top of my game but at some point I decided that I am going to play till there is nothing left in the tank,” Chelios said. “I gave Mike Babcock reasons to not play me, not be a top-four (defenceman), maybe not so much in the beginning but we had a great team and I was content with it.

“If Jaromir gets to the point where he is not a top-six (forward) on the top two lines and he can’t deal with that and doesn’t want to play that limited role…one off-year could change his mind at his age.”

Barring injury or any unforeseen circumstance, Jagr will pass Chelios for fifth on the all-time games played list in Florida’s final game this month in Chicago on Nov. 29.

Jagr is on his sixth one-year contract and if things continue to slide for him, perhaps the thought of retiring may cross his mind but for now, why would it? Everything about the game just seems too enjoyable to let go.

When asked if he enjoys hockey now as much now as he did as a child, his answer said it all.

“Of course I do, yeah, maybe more,” he said, before pausing for thought. “Probably more.”

No different than it was for Chelios or Howe.

“I guess the only thing I can say is we just love playing the game,” Chelios said. “When your team is winning it helps heal a lot of things, right now Jagr is in a great situation, he’s got a good group of young guys, he’s still a big part of the team…If I played against him I would try to make it hard on him because he has way too much fun out there.”

Follow Neil Acharya on Twitter: @Neil_Acharya