Jaromir Jagr: What Scared Jagr Away from the Pittsburgh Penguins?

It only took place over a couple of days, but Jaromir Jagr's return to the NHL was a pretty weird saga to behold. It began earlier this week with a one-year offer from the Pittsburgh Penguins, had a second act that saw Jagr disappear and ended on Friday with the former MVP putting his John Hancock on a one-year offer from the Philadelphia Flyers.

This is a surprising end result, as many people in and around the NHL fully expected Jagr to return to Pittsburgh—the very place where he got the ball rolling on his legendary NHL career way back in 1990.

To be sure, this is not a matter of the Flyers stealing a truly great player away from the Penguins. The Flyers stole a once-great player from the Penguins, which is not exactly a fate worse than death. The intriguing part is that the Flyers took a player who, by all rights, should have gone to the Penguins.

So what happened? What convinced Jagr to end his three-year Russian exile by returning to play for the Flyers?

Well, the most obvious reason is money. According to the Associated Press, the Flyers offered Jagr $3.3 million, which is no small increase from the Penguins' offer of a mere $2 million. The 39-year-old Jagr is not the player he once was, but he still deserves to be paid like an all-time great.

But Jagr's spurning of the Penguins goes beyond simple dollar signs. The AP report notes that Jagr will actually be expected to play an important role on the Flyers, who last week traded off two of their best scorers in Jeff Carter and Mike Richards. Jagr will be expected to help pick up the slack, and we know from his 1,599 career points that he will jump at the opportunity.

By all accounts, the Penguins did not have such lofty plans for Jagr. In fact, they were quite simple.

Via ESPN, here's what Penguins GM Ray Shero told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about Jagr on Tuesday:

"

We feel from the information we have and after seeing at world championships, that he's a guy who might be able to help us this coming season. We feel he's a guy who could help us this year, and retire as a Penguin.

"

If you're getting a lack of genuine excitement from that statement, don't worry. You're not alone. Saying Jagr "might" be able help is oddly patronizing, and the retirement PR stunt part definitely stands out.

Make no mistake, Jagr had to know that this was the case. He knew that the Penguins saw him more as a figurehead than an actual contributor. Maybe that's why he decided to go AWOL when he landed in the United States on Wednesday. Presumably, he needed some time alone so he could think things over.

While Jagr was mulling things over, Shero sent a text to NHL.com that said: "No word from them [Jagr's camp]. We are working on signing our own players."

Once again, a lack of genuine excitement.

Ultimately, Jagr made up his mind to go get his feet wet on the other side of Pennsylvania with the Flyers, a team that wasn't even reported to have an offer on the table at the time Jagr went missing.

An unexpected end to a strange story, no doubt about that. But the more you think about it, the more it makes sense. If Jagr was going to return to the NHL, he was going to do it right. Rejoining the Penguins, it seems, would have been doing it wrong.