McDavid could net 100, Jagr says
Jaromir Jagr believes Connor McDavid is on the verge of making NHL history.
After watching McDavid score three goals in Wednesday’s season opener, the 45-year-old Calgary Flames winger said he thinks it’s possible the Oilers captain could soon shatter Wayne Gretzky’s single-season goal-scoring record of 92.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if someday he scored 100 goals and breaks the record — it is possible,” said a smiling Jagr, who watched McDavid’s hat trick from a Calgary hotel room after flying in from Czech Republic to be introduced as the newest Flame.
“McDavid is too good, man. Right now, those rules are perfect for him.”
It’s a bold prediction given no one has really even challenged the mark Gretzky set as a 21-year-old in 1982.
For the record, The Great One added 120 assists that year.
Jagr played the bulk of his 27year career alongside legends such as Gretzky and Mario Lemieux and said that while goal scoring was up considerably back in those days, so was the hooking and holding that gave opponents a fair shot at slowing stars down.
“Probably Wayne and Mario were the same, but you could grab and hold them with the stick,” said Jagr, a five-time NHL scoring leader whose best season was a 62-goal effort in 1995-96.
“With his speed in this game now, when you cannot hold and grab, it’s very dangerous. He scored three and had three breakaways. I’ve never seen anything like that in my life, somebody dominate like that with his speed.”
With the crackdown on obstruction the last dozen years, a player of McDavid’s speed is able to shine, as he did Wednesday in a 3-0 victory over the Flames in which he had seven shots on goal and was the game’s first star after embarrassing several Flames blue-liners.
The 20-year-old reigning scoring champ scored 30 goals as part of 100 points — both career highs — last season.
Jagr, a former Hart Trophy winner who has had plenty of fans shaking their heads in wonderment over the years, smiled as he went one step further on his analysis of the game’s reigning Hart and Art Ross trophy winner.
“If he would learn how to score on breakaways a little more, I think he’ll score 150 in a season,” he deadpanned.
“He’s a great player.”