NHL

JAGR-RENNEY REUNION IN EDMONTON POSSIBLE

A YEAR ago, Jaromir Jagr finished the NHL regular season with an eye on Russia. This year, Slap Shots has learned, Jagr finished the KHL regular season with an eye on North America.

According to a well-placed source, Jagr was attempting to negotiate his way out of next season’s obligation to Omsk so he could have signed with Edmonton last week, a day or two before the NHL trade deadline.

The contract with the Oilers, we’re told, would have included a “poison pill” obligation of upward of $7 million for next year in order to discourage the competition – specifically, Pittsburgh – from claiming Jagr on waivers upon his return to the NHL.

The audacious plan collapsed, however, when Omsk qualified for the final KHL playoff spot on the final day of the season. Jagr’s team has since proceeded to stun regular-season champion Salavat in a first-round, five-game shocker in which he scored important goals in Games 4 and 5.

There is no word, by the way, whether No. 68 held a press briefing to announce that he had paced himself throughout the regular season.

Jagr, who accurately had been linked to the Oilers in mid-February, is all but certain to attempt to gain clearance from Omsk and the KHL to return to the NHL next season even though he had told friends throughout the year he is locked into Russia for 2009-10. If Tom Renney had remained behind the Ranger bench, it’s likely he would have sought to come back to New York.

That scenario is now inoperative. Indeed, if the Oilers miss the playoffs for a third straight year, it’s just possible Renney could replace Craig MacTavish as head coach and reunite with Jagr in Edmonton.

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John Tortorella isn’t going to like it one bit, neither is Brent Sutter, and neither did Joe Torre, not even a little.

But Rangers-Devils is now crystallized into Sean AveryMartin Brodeur just as Yankees-Mets in 2000 was distilled into Roger ClemensMike Piazza.

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So Toronto GM Brian Burke, pushing relentlessly to exploit openings in the CBA (as is his duty), gets a fourth-round draft pick from the Lightning in exchange for taking approximately $550,000 of injured players’ contracts off Tampa Bay’s payroll in a wink-and-nod trade for a non-prospect that was approved by the NHL though the deal contravenes the spirit of the CBA.

But there’s no money problem in Tampa, not at all.

And the league will carefully monitor any future transactions between the Maple Leafs and Lightning, of course it will.

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Good to see the Stars’ team unity in force last week when they all stood around and watched as the agitating Steve Ott was hacked and whacked by Anaheim goaltender J-S Giguere at the final buzzer before he was surrounded and jostled by a pack of Ducks without a single teammate coming to his aid.

This though Ott could not fight because he was playing with a broken bone in his hand.

And this from Mike Modano: “It’s a matter of putting yourself in that situation . . . [Ott’s] situation is what it is. He’s on double-secret probation with the league. Anything he tiptoes around, he could be in trouble.”

Ah, well, OK, at least pretty much every time Modano opens his mouth to deliver condescending opinions about teammates who don’t play the game according to his own brand of ethics, he explains why he carries the title of ex-captain.

By the way. Career-value for an American-born center, it’s Modano. Single-season value, it’s Pat LaFontaine. But for the playoffs, we’ll take Neal Broten every time.

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Witnessing Evgeni Malkin elevate his team yet again in the absence of Sidney Crosby somehow brings to mind the two greatest travesties in trophy-voting by the Professional Hockey Writers’ Assn.

Those would be, a) the 2006 vote that awarded the Hart to Joe Thornton rather than Jagr; and, b) the 1998 vote that gave the Conn Smythe to Steve Yzerman rather than Sergei Fedorov.

Not sure what the common denominator could be, though.

Hey, when Tortorella extols Derek Morris‘ work from the point on the power play, he’s talking about the point – yes, the point; the single point in 118 minutes of power-play ice time this season – he recorded on the 27th-ranked Coyote PP with an assist on Dec. 10, right?

Finally, when Dominic Moore rejected Toronto’s multi-year offer of approximately $1.7M per in seeking an extension worth between $2.3-2.5M per, it proved once and for all that he avoided all courses in both economics and common sense while enrolled at Harvard.

larry.brooks@nypost.com