Flashback: the day Lemieux broke the 1,500-point mark and Jagr broke the 1,000-point mark in one game

On 30 December 2000, the Pittsburgh Penguins welcomed the Ottawa Senators to the ice. The home team won the game 5:3 and not only in the club annals, but also in the history of the NHL, two great men of world hockey were written into the history books. Jaromir Jagr and Mario Lemieux excelled in this duel and recorded great career milestones.

The unforgettable Lemieux – Jagr duo continued to work

After the 1996-97 season, Mario Lemieux retired at the age of 32 due to ongoing health problems. However, this season he dominated the scoring for the 6th time in his career, equaling Gordie Howe in the entire league.

17. in November of that year, he became only the 9th player to be immediately inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, forgiving the mandatory 3-year term. The last time this honour was bestowed on the most productive player in NHL history, Wayne Gretzky, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame two years later.

However, a few weeks before the end of the millennium, information began to leak out that Mario was planning a return to the ice. The baton of scoring leader after his retirement was taken over by his apprentice Jaromir Jagr, who before the 2000-01 season was already a four-time winner of the Art Ross Trophy, which is awarded to the regular season scoring winner.

This season, however, was not a good one for the Czech forward. He had a point per game, but was languishing in the top 20 of the productivity chart. But everything changed on December 27, 2000. The divine Mario did indeed return to the ice against Toronto and after more than 3 years of retirement he lost none of his skill. In the very first game after his return to the ice, the Lemieux – Jagr interplay was on full display as Jagr scored after only 33 seconds of play, with Lemieux passing the puck to him.

The duel with Ottawa brought big milestones for both players

Just 3 days later, Pittsburgh welcomed Ottawa to the ice. And in this game, the renewed chemistry of these two world hockey greats was on full display. Jagr was as if poured with living water and bought one point after another until the end of the season.

It was the Lemieux factor that was behind the Czech forward winning his fifth (and last) Art Ross Trophy after the season, when he was in a points race with Joe Sakic of the Colorado Avalanche. But back to the game against Ottawa. Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh saw two big milestones in this game.

Lemieux had 4 points on a goal and 3 assists. The admirable thing is that the 40+ month break was practically not noticeable on this hockey player. He simply picked up where he left off.

Lemieux passed two goals to Jagr and the second assist marked an incredible 1,500th point in the regular season in just 747 games played, a career average of two points per game! He became only the 10th player in NHL history to reach the mark and the 2nd fastest in history, only Wayne Gretzky reached the mark faster. Moreover, he did not spare himself in this game, playing almost 25 minutes.

Ivan Hlinka, the only Czech head coach in NHL history, commented on these accomplishments as follows. “Some people are born to paint pictures, like Picasso, or write books, and some people are born to play hockey. That’s Mario and Jagr.”

The resurgent Jagr recorded another assist in this game and became the 59th player in NHL history to break the 1,000 point mark in the NHL. After just two games, both players had 7 points! Jagr scored 4 goals, but before Mario’s return he was struggling to score, scoring only one goal in 12 games and even dropped out of the top 20 scoring for a while.

Two games and Jaromir was already 9th in productivity, so the end of 2000 was the day when these two greats made NHL history in one game.

Source: NHL, ESPN