From John Dellapina of the NY Daily News:
Jagr told me again today that he hasn’t heard anything from Rangers GM Glen Sather since they spoke on the day the team broke up for the season. While such a cat-and-mouse act is long-standing standard operating procedure for Sather, it makes little sense in this case.
Not only can Jagr sign with Omsk-Avangard at any time, there seems to be little to be gained by making him sit and wonder whether the Rangers want him back. His personal experience (see: Washington 2000-2004) is that things don’t go well when he’s playing for a team that doesn’t fully believe in him. And every day that goes by without the Rangers reaching out to him has to make him wonder even more.
Having watched the Rangers throw bags of money at Scott Gomez and Chris Drury last July – only to outscore both of them and play his best in the biggest games of this past season – how is he supposed to react to the team not even making an offer just two weeks shy of the day on which he can become an unrestricted free agent?
Read more from Dellapina here.
It is hard to predict Sather’s strategy at this point. He could merely be planning for the draft and has plans to shift his focus to free agency soon after. On the other hand, maybe he doesn’t have that much interest in Jagr. Either way, Jagr probably would like to find out where he stands with the organization sooner rather than later.
