Mario Lemieux, owner and player, says they want to keep Jagr, if he wants to stay. While Craig Patrick makes the player decisions, it’s hard to believe he would make a deal to send away the team’s captain and the best player in the world without Mario’s approval. So let’s ignore the chat room gossip and get real.

Jagr has been labeled a whiner. He makes millions of dollars to play a game, they say. But we don’t know what goes on in his head or in his life. This season is the first one since he joined the league that he has struggled - and while struggling, he’s close to the league lead in points and goals!

We all know that ego and machismo are big parts of sports. Maybe it’s hard for Jagr to deal with Mario coming back and the attention that’s garnered not to mention how the team as a whole has responded since his return. Maybe it’s hard for Jagr to see Kovalev having a career year on a line Jagr is not involved with at all on the ice. But Jagr is still the captain and a huge part of the team.

When Lemieux and Jagr are clicking, it’s a beautiful thing to watch. Jagr is putting big time pressure on himself trying to produce at a level that he is used to playing on, but he’s still got abilities far beyond most players. To be fair, the media has not ever gotten on him about his play or lack of skill. His antics early in the year, arguing with Hlinka on national television and playing like he wasn’t interested, were reported on, but no one ever questioned his ability to play hockey.

The "fans" that are all over Jagr now seem to have forgotten the heart and guts he displayed during the playoffs a couple of years ago while he was in more pain than most of us could imagine. And they’ve forgotten all the good things he’s done, records he’s set, etc. It’s a case of "what have you done for me lately". In addition, Jagr never made salary demands or did anything off the ice to embarrass the organization. The worst thing he has done (repeatedly) is to talk to the press and claim he was misquoted. Again, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and remember that English is not his first language and maybe when he has spoken to reporters in Czech, it has gotten garbled in the translation.

When Mario retired in 1997, the Pens were fortunate in that they still had the number one player in the world. Now that Mario is back, they have the two top players. So the best thing Jagr could do right now, for everyone involved, is to stop talking to the media about this subject. Talk about the games, the opposition, the upcoming playoffs, but not about the quality of his own play or trade rumors. The team should be focused on winning not on needless distractions perpetuated by reporters looking for stories.