NEWARK–a Devils goal in the first minute by Lee Stempniak enabled New Jersey to keep Florida under their thumb in a 4-2 win over the Panthers Sunday night. The loss snapped a five-game winning streak for Florida as the team was defeated for the first time in December, finishing their road trip 4-1-0.
Adam Henrique lead the way for the Devils with a goal and two assists, while Mike Cammalleri and Kyle Palmieri rounded out the scoring for New Jersey who scored four goals on 17 shots in what was a shaky game in net by Roberto Luongo. The Panthers could only beat Devils goalie Cory Schneider twice on 37 shots.
Probably most significant for Florida was reuniting the Jonathon Huberdeau,-Aleksander Barkov-Jaromir Jagr line, which accounted for goals by Huberedeau and Aaron Ekblad. Jagr had assists on both goals to snap a four-game pointless streak. The assists give Jagr 12 for the season and with eight goals put him at a team-leading 20 for the season. Shift after shift the line dominated play for the first time since last season.
The full nhl.com review and video highlights can be seen here:
http://www.nhl.com/gamecenter/en/recap?id=2015020400&navid=sb:recap&intcmpid=sb-highlights
Perhaps it was a return to New Jersey, where he played most of two seasons got Jagr in a comfort zone he hasn’t been in since the Nov. 27 game against the Islanders, which he left early in the third after a collision affected his mobility.
Whatever it was, Jagr’s two assists drew him to within 28 points of tying Gordie Howe as the NHL’s third all-time leading scorer.
A trip to New Jersey means a trip to a former NHL stop for Jagr. Earlier in the day Jagr spoke to reporters about his days in the KHL with Devils. The clip also includes comments by Sergey Kalinin who played with Jagr briefly for Omsk. In addition to some intersting comments, we also get a nice view of Jagr’s mullet regrowth progress.
It was a tough night for the Atlantic Division as Florida, Tampa Bay, Buffalo and Ottawa all lost while the rest of the division rested.
More from the lockerroom after the game:
http://www.northjersey.com/sports/hockey/devils-notes-jaromir-jagr-still-having-fun-1.1468917
Sunday’s game marked the 27th or approximate first third of the season. Over 82 games at their current pace the Panthers are looking at 90 points. However, if you like to believed they’ve slightly underachieved to this point, then the rest of the season should see them remain in the battle for second or third place in the division or one of the two wild card spots in the Eastern Conference. Florida sits fifth, among a cluster of five Atlantic Division teams within give points of each other for slots 2-6.
Florida returns home for games against Ottawa Tuesday and Washington Thursday. A four-game road trip starts Saturday in Boston to close out the week and continues next week with games against the New York Islanders, a rematch with the Devils and Carolina. The holiday season will be spend in South Florida with six games per week culminating with weekend games Jan. 2 vs. the New York Rangers and Sunday, Jan. 3 vs. Minnesota. Tickets for all Panthers home games can be secured at http://www.floridapanthers.com. The team is offering some great packages. Reasonable prices (and the beach) make it worth traveling to Florida to see them play.
In other Jagr news, the Traveling Jagrs have yet to announce their appearance schedule for this season, but they do have some news, relayed by Rangers Jagr:
Tylor Keller The search for the Kladno Travelling Jagr begins today! Thanks for sending us this package. @RytiriKladno @68Jagr
Assorted Jagr-related links:
Florida Panthers 2015-16 Media Guide
http://panthers.nhl.com/v2/ext/Florida201516MediaGuide_web.pdf
Florida Panthers Team website: http://www.floridapanthers.com
Some Jagr-related social media accounts:
@68Jagr This is the real site, the one and only official Jaromir Jagr twitter account. Postings are rare.
The two best Jagr facebook pages are: https://www.facebook.com/68Jagr/ This is the page Jagr posts on, if he is going to post at all.
Another good facebook page is one produced by someone in the Czech Republic. It has more than 100,000 likes. This is not the official page, but it is very good.
https://www.facebook.com/JaromirJagrfan/?fref=nf
@FlaPanthers and @FLAPanthersPR The official twitter accounts for news about the team.
@dougielarge Doug Cifu, few owners in sports relate to the fans as much as this man who interacts with fans and media on twitter.
@goldieonice — Steve Goldstein, TV play-by-play of the Panthers. Brings all those exciting highlights to life.
@DenisPotvinFox — NHL Hall of Famer Denis Potvin works along side Goldstein in the booth.
@HeyRedDeer color man Randy Moller who left the radio booth to help Goldstein and Potvin on TV.
@GeorgeRichards Panthers beat writer for the Miami Herald.
@HFialkov Panthers beat writer for the Sun Sentinel
@AntwanStaley Includes Panthers coverage in his all sports all the time reports
@Cats0ntheprowl twitter for Cats On the Prowl, offering detailed reviews of Panthers games and more.
@SunshineSkate twitter for The Sunshine Skate, another blog with special emphasis on advanced stats and charts that will make you dizzy.
@Zdenek_Janda US-based Czech reporter who covers the NHL and reports on other news for the people of the Czech Republic.
@Jsmidcro Jan Smid was a US-based Czech reporter who collaborated on “Jagr”, an autobiography in the late 90’s detailing Jagr’s early life and career in the NHL.
@NHLHistoryGirl This hockey loving woman shares interesting informational tidbits about hockey and the NHL in general. How does she do it?
@MyRegularFace She’s another gem. Watches lots of games and gets up GIFs faster than nhl.com or anyone else out there.
@KrRutherford Kristina Rutherford wrote a great article for Canada’s sportsnet magazine.
Nigel Buchanan, whose superhero treatment of Jagr in his art for sportsnet magazine is one of the many efforts he has on display at http://www.nigelbuchanan.com.
Quant Hockey: Career stats updated game by game by a hockey lover in Europe. Site enables you to find career leaders in any offensive category by clicking on the category you are researching.
http://www.quanthockey.com/nhl/records/nhl-players-all-time-points-leaders.html
@rytiriKladno The Kladno Hockey Club: Before coming to the NHL Jagr played for this team in the Czech league as a teenager. Now he owns the team. It’s in Czech but some devices can translate to English. Follow them at:
@HockeyCzech National organization for hockey in the Czech Republic.
@68isgr8 is the twitter for The Traveling Jagrs. Clad in different Jagr jerseys and hair styles from 68’s career, they gained league-wide recognition when they caught Jagr’s attention during a pre-game skate of a Dallas Stars game in Canada during the 2012-2013 season. Since then, they convene at games in Western Canada and make a road trip or two every year, playing street hockey with locals, posing for hundreds of pictures, and having a good time with fans while honoring an all-time NHL legend.
https://twitter.com/search?q=traveling%20jagrs&src=savs.
Ray Haluska aka Kladno Jagr, curator of the Jagr-O-Meter
