Jaromir Jagr Traded to Florida Panthers: What the Deal Means for Team

While not the most high-profile deal that has been made this season, the Florida Panthers and New Jersey Devils made headlines Thursday by agreeing to swap Jaromir Jagr for two draft picks, according to ESPN.com's Scott Burnside.

The Panthers brought in the right winger who spent the last two seasons with New Jersey in the hope that he could push Florida to the playoffs for the first time since the 2011-12 season.

Jagr, who spent a majority of his career with the Pittsburgh Penguins, has been in the league since 1990 and is fifth on the all-time scoring list, with a career 1,784 points. He has a pretty good shot at jumping Ron Francis for fourth if he stays around for a couple more years.

His five scoring titles stand out, and he could be a true veteran presence for the Panthers, who are looking for that extra boost into the Stanley Cup playoffs.

But that is the past. This is the present, and I’m not entirely sure this is the right move for Florida.

Currently two points behind Boston, who has a game in hand, and on the outside looking in of the playoff picture, the squad needs a boost if it is going to make it to the postseason.

While that is a goal pretty much all teams strive for, the addition of Jagr isn’t going to transform Florida into a team that can truly challenge for the Stanley Cup. It most likely means it is going to be rewarded with facing a borderline impossible task in the first round in the form of the Boston Bruins.

It would make a lot more sense if the Panthers were pretty comfortably in the playoffs and battling for a higher seed that could see them pull an upset or two and make a run to the conference finals at worst. But for now, it just seems like a desperate move to earn a playoff spot it still isn’t even guaranteed.

The picks aren’t the toughest blow—a 2015 second-rounder and a conditional 2016 third-rounder might not hurt that significantly in the long run. But the payoff doesn’t seem to be worth it.

In his prime, Jagr was one of the most dangerous players in the league, topping 100 points on five different occasions and hitting at least 90 another five.

But in his last six years, Jagr will now have played for six different franchises and has topped 60 points only twice since 2008. He can still be a serious threat at times—see his 67-point season last year—but he's past his prime, and the addition feels more like making a move to make a move.

Jagr is now 43 years old and isn’t getting any younger—cliched as that is—moving forward. While his natural scoring ability still does help the Panthers, who are ranked No. 25 in the league in goals per game, it still feels like a desperate trade for Florida.

This is a player who played his first game in the NHL three years before his new team did. He still has something to bring to the NHL, but how much is a big question.

From the Devils' side of things, the loss of Jagr, who ranked third on the team in points this season, is a bit of a blow, but it makes a ton of logical sense. Having missed the playoffs in each of the last two seasons and sitting eight points out of the race this time around, it feels like now is the time for a rebuild.

The picks aren’t first-rounders, but getting value out of Jagr at this point in his career is a big win for the Devils, who aren’t planning to get much else out of this season.

At the end of the day, if the Panthers can make a push to the playoffs and possibly make a run, then this move will be seen as a relative success. But right now, that doesn’t seem likely, and the acquisition of Jagr feels like a mistake in the long run.