Predictably the talk surrounding Jaromir Jagr and his contract situation hasn’t gone away since the Rangers’ captain spoke to the Post’s Larry Brooks and expressed his desire to not be “a distraction to the team,” while cryptically revealing that he has “a pretty good idea what [he's] going to do next year…but [he's] not going to say anything.”

As we stated on Monday, Jaromir would have been better off keeping his mouth shut.

Yesterday, the Blueshirt Bulletin passed along a report from Czech news site iDNES in which GM Glen Sather evidently expressed that “he expects to eventually make a contract proposal that is mutually acceptable for both sides before Jagr becomes a free agent on July 1st,” and that the organization will do “everything possible” to keep other Czechs on the roster to insure their superstar’s continued comfort level in New York.

In the wake of Slat’s comments, Jagr was forced to again address the situation today in front of the assembled beat writers. Via Sam Weinman’s LoHud blog, Rangers Report:

“I think we should worry about that a little later after the season,” Jagr said. “How to explain it? There was still a chance I was going to hit the numbers (84 points for him and and appearance in the second round for the Rangers) and I was going to be here for sure. Now I’m not going to hit it and I’m totally OK with free agency. But I still have a contract here and I’m going to try to play my best, so whatever happens, happens. I don’t know.”
…
“I know how people react when there’s pressure from media,” he cracked. “You cannot say the truth, so I don’t know what’s going to happen. I just want to have a great playoffs. That’s all I worry about.”

Too bad this debate was opened in the first place, or else a “great playoffs” is all we’d have to worry about as well.