Jaromir Jagr arrived at Rangers training camp yesterday with June on his mind. The Rangers’ season ended on May 6, one full month before Anaheim skated away with the Stanley Cup. For Jagr, the season ended four weeks too early.
“I didn’t miss the Cup,” Jagr explained yesterday. “I missed the one month after the [Rangers’ final] series. I went through halfway, only one month with the guys with a lot of pressure and excitement in the city and everything. I needed one extra month.”
The Rangers arrived in Greenburgh for training camp yesterday with winning the Stanley Cup as a realistic goal. The team added top free-agent centers Scott Gomez and Chris Drury on July 1, hoping to improve on last year’s second-round playoff ouster.
“I think the expectations are high and they should be,” said Gomez, who crossed the Hudson from the Devils. “Anything else but a Stanley Cup this year and we didn’t do our job.”
Tom Renney has not decided which of his new centers will be teamed with Jagr on the first line. The team takes the ice for their first practice this morning and we could get our first clue to what Renney is thinking.
Jagr said he feels good and was able to work out more this offseason than the last two years, when he was slowed by injuries. He admitted he was excited when he heard about the Rangers’ moves this summer but cautioned that just because the roster looks like a Cup winner does not make it so.
“The names are not going to do a whole lot if the player doesn’t play the way he should play,” Jagr said. “There’s a lot of pressure on everybody in the whole organization. I think [GM] Glen [Sather] did a great job getting the players we needed, but now it’s up to the players how we’re going to play.”
The Rangers finished third in the Atlantic Division last year and made it to the second round before losing to the Sabres in six games.
Jagr led the team with 96 points but now must adjust to life without center Michael Nylander, who signed with the Capitals. The Rangers will turn to Gomez or Drury to fill the void, something Gomez said he’s looking forward to.
“The guy’s still the best hockey player in the world,” Gomez said of Jagr. “I’ve always approached my job as to get whoever I’m playing with the puck.”