NHL legend Jaromir Jagr is retiring from hockey at 52 years old

The New Jersey Devils had the pleasure of employing Jaromir Jagr for a couple of seasons as he made his way through his legendary NHL career.

Of course, Jagr is a legend in the game of hockey overall as he has spent a lot of time playing in Europe as well. On Thursday, we learned that after this season, he is retiring from the game at 52 years old. That will conclude one of the greatest careers the sport has ever seen.

Jagr will his playing career in Czechia with Kladno. He last played in the NHL in 2017-18 as a member of the Calgary Flames. Over the course of his 24 years spent in the NHL, he scored 766 goals and had 1155 assists for 1921 points.

He is second all-time in NHL points and only trails Wayne Gretzky. When the time comes, he will be a first-ballot Hall of Fame player.

The New Jersey Devils were able to have Jaromir Jagr around for a little bit

His aforementioned time spent with New Jersey included 139 games played over parts of two years where he scored 35 goals and had 61 assists for 96 points. For being 41 and 42 years old in the NHL, those were some impressive numbers.

Jagr made some really bad New Jersey Devils teams fun to watch. Every goal he scored with them seemed to have some sort of historical meaning to it. It was a treat to have him for a couple years.

In addition to the Devils and the previously stated Flames, he spent time with the Pittsburgh Penguins, New York Rangers, Washington Capitals, Florida Panthers, Philadelphia Flyers, Boston Bruins, and the Dallas Stars. He was an impact player with all of them.

11 of his 24 seasons were spent with the Penguins which is where he won two Stanley Cups. Over the course of his career, he also won the Art Ross Trophy five times, the Hart Trophy, the Masterton Trophy, the Pearson Trophy, and was named as one of the NHL's 100 greatest players during their centennial season.

Now that Jagr is about to be done playing, it is hard to see him completely stepping away from the game entirely. It will be interesting to see what he does next. No matter what, you know he'll be good at it. His time with New Jersey was a small portion of it but it was fun while it lasted. Congrats to him on one of the greatest careers in the history of the sport.