Patrick Kane is heading back to Chicago, and that alone is enough to stir up the kind of nostalgia that comes with a franchise icon circling back for one more run. The Blackhawks are signing him to a two-year deal, giving Kane a chance to close the loop and, presumably, put a final chapter on a Hall of Fame career in the place where it all took off.
That kind of clean reunion is exactly what Pittsburgh never got with Jaromir Jagr.
The Jagr-Penguins story has a couple of anniversaries attached to it this summer. It was 25 years ago this month that Jagr’s time in Pittsburgh ended in 2011, when he was traded to Washington in a move that wound up feeling like a lose-lose for both sides. And 15 years ago, the Penguins and Jagr briefly entertained the idea of bringing him back.
At the time, Jagr was 39 and trying to return to the NHL after spending three years in a self-imposed KHL exile. Pittsburgh had Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin in their prime and was chasing more Stanley Cups. On paper, it looked like the kind of reunion that could make sense for everyone.
It didn’t.
Jagr had his own preferences, and they didn’t line up with what Pittsburgh could offer. He always favored playing with a right-handed center, while Crosby and Malkin are both lefties.
There was also the matter of the money. Some people in the Penguins’ higher-ups wanted Jagr back, but then general manager Ray Shero, dealing with a cap crunch, was not among them.
Shero’s offer came in well below what Jagr got from at least two other NHL teams, and that only made the situation worse.
By the end, the whole thing had taken on the feel of something unreal. The Penguins even publicly retracted their contract offer once it became clear the two sides weren’t going to get a deal done. The buzz around a possible reunion had grown so loud that Pittsburgh felt it had to get out ahead of the story and make it clear the comeback wasn’t happening.
It’s hard to picture that kind of scene now. Social media was around 15 years ago, sure, but not in the way it would amplify a story like that today.
Jagr ultimately took the biggest offer and the right-handed center he wanted, signing a $3.3 million deal with the Philadelphia Flyers and Claude Giroux. He then put up 54 points in 79 games for Pittsburgh’s biggest rival and later helped eliminate the Penguins in the 2012 playoffs.
After that, Jagr kept moving. He played in short stretches for Dallas, Boston, New Jersey and Florida before finishing his NHL career in Calgary during the 2017-18 season. Once 2011 passed, the idea of him returning to Pittsburgh as a player was basically gone for good.
The eventual reconciliation came much later, and it happened on Pittsburgh’s terms. Jagr stayed active with Kladno, the Czech league team he owns a stake in, and even kept playing part-time through 2025-26, appearing in six games at age 53. Then, in February 2024, the Penguins finally gave him the sendoff that had been out of reach for so long when his No. 68 went to the rafters.
That was the ending Pittsburgh could only give him after the fact. Chicago, meanwhile, is about to get the version of the story Pittsburgh never did: a true on-ice return for one of the greatest players in franchise history.
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