Ahead of the Devils' game against Carolina, Jaromir Jagr took the time to thank Ron Francis for a fair amount of his early success. "People think a lot about us playing on a line with Mario (Lemieux) and I never did. I was playing with Ron Francis," Jagr said of his time with Pittsburgh. "I was playing with Mario on the power play, but five on five Ronnie Francis was my center for seven, eight years. He probably assisted on most of the goals I scored." Francis eventually joined the Hurricanes and served as the team's captain until he retired in 2004. Jagr recently surpassed Lemieux in the all-time goals chart and needs just one more marker to tie Steve Yzerman for eighth place.