The Pittsburgh Penguins and Buffalo Sabres debuted their Reverse Retro jerseys on national TV on Wednesday. The Penguins rocked retro sweaters that were inspired by the Mario Lemieux teams of yore and featured the ‘The Robo Pen’ logo. The Sabres played in primarily white jerseys that included royal blue and gold stripes. The team’s white buffalo head logo from 1996 was on the crest.
Jason Zucker scored the game’s first goal via a two-on-one and had a perfect celebration afterward.
Zucker scored on a two-on-one with Evgeni Malkin, clapping a one-timer past Sabres goaltender Eric Comrie. Then he skated over to the boards and did Jaromir Jagr’s salute to the PPG Paints Arena crowd.
Love the Jagr salute from Jason Zucker after the one timer in the Jagr era throwbacks pic.twitter.com/s39g8brRB0
— BucciParmPastaExtension8X11 (@Buccigross) November 2, 2022
The celebration went viral and of course, got the attention of Jagr, who loves jumping back into the NHL spotlight when appropriate.
Jagr posted a video on his Twitter account addressing Zucker’s tribute to him.
Salute 😄 pic.twitter.com/SgcSpG75if
— Jaromir Jagr (@68Jagr) November 3, 2022
“Hello, hockey fans,” Jagr said. “What about the salute Jason Zucker did when he scored? I was reading some comments. Some people like it. Some people don’t. I LOVE it. I feel like they show a lot of respect for our era, for our team, because they had a lot of great players. Thank you, Penguins. Thank you, Jason. By the way, Jason. Keep working on your shot. It wasn’t hard enough.”
Jagr then saluted Zucker back.
Then Zucker returned the favor in emoji form.
Nothing but respect @68Jagr 🫡 https://t.co/mMpA9NW91Q
— Jason Zucker (@Jason_Zucker16) November 3, 2022
This reminds me back to the time when three-quarters of the hockey world was up in arms with Alex Ovechkin’s hot stick celebration. Zucker’s celebration was perfect, just like Jack Hughes and Trevor Zegras’ stick tosses into the crowd after overtime goals. Being free to express yourself in hockey only makes the game better.
Also, in hindsight: Ovi should have totally done the salute after passing Jagr on the goals list.
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