When Jaromir Jagr was asked to pick the most special goal he scored during his amazing career, the choice was easy.
It happened during a playoff series against the Chicago Blackhawks in 1992, and to this day, it’s many hockey fans’ favorite goal of all time.
Jagr was 19 at the time, and it was he who sparked an outrageous comeback for the Penguins that changed the momentum of the finals early in Game 1. The Penguins trailed the game 4-1, but after two quick goals, Jagr would put his incredible stickhandling on display.
Jagr had players all around him, but with some magical deeks, he found himself open in front of the goal, and he finished it off with a great backhand past Ed Belfour.
That helped start the comeback in a game that the Pens eventually won before sweeping the series and winning the Stanley Cup.
Pens would perhaps never have won the cup if it wasn’t for that win in Game 1, and they would probably not have won Game 1 if it wasn’t for Jagr’s highlight-reel goal.
Jagr is one of the most laid-back people in hockey history, and he rarely praises his own goals. That’s another proof of how special the goal against the Blackhawks was, and his teammates immediately realized it.
In a recent piece by The Athletic, Scott Bowman, the Pens coach then, revealed what Mario Lemieux said about the goal when asked how Jagr’s goal compared to other ones Lemieux had scored in his career.
”Mario said, ‘Scotty, that’s the greatest goal I’ve seen a player score in my life,’” Bowman said. “That’s from Mario, the greatest player I’ve ever seen.”
To Scotty Bowman, the winningest coach in NHL history, it speaks volumes about how crazy a goal it was.
“Guys like Mario can see it. He saw it in Jagr. And if you ask me, Jagr wanted Mario to see it. That was his hero.”
