The clock on Jaromír Jágr’s eventual Hockey Hall of Fame induction has officially been reset for another year.

At age 53, Jágr suited up for Rytíři Kladno in a game against HC Vítkovice on Friday, giving him a 38th season in professional hockey. He made his debut in the Czech Extraliga in 1988.

The earliest Jágr will now be eligible to clear the Hall of Fame’s three-year waiting period for induction is 2029.

That formality is the only thing keeping him from taking an official spot alongside the sport’s all-time greats. However, Jágr is showing no inclination toward winding down his career, even while playing multiple recent seasons under the guise that it may be his last.

His 2025-26 season debut for Kladno was originally scheduled to come Sept. 30 against Karlovým Varům, but a pulled muscle in warmups kept him from playing. On Friday night, Jágr skated as the team’s fourth-line right-winger alongside fellow veterans Martin Procházka and Antonín Melka, who are 22 and 18 years younger than him, respectively.

👑 is back! 🔥 pic.twitter.com/JO42vNkDmU

— Rytíři Kladno (@RytiriKladno) October 17, 2025

While there’s no doubting Jágr’s Hall of Fame credentials as the NHL’s second all-time leading scorer, he will not be granted entry until sitting out the waiting period following the end of his career. Ten players have previously had that waived by the selection committee to be inducted immediately after retiring, but the practice was stopped in 1999 following the end of Wayne Gretzky’s record-setting career.

At that time, there were concerns that the Hall had unintentionally created a tiered system of those inducted immediately upon retirement and those who had to wait. Plus, they’d seen multiple players come out of retirement to resume playing after being honored with a plaque, blazer and ring.

Mario Lemieux was put directly into the Hockey Hall of Fame as part of the 1997 class and returned to play parts of five more NHL seasons with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Gordie Howe managed seven more professional seasons between the WHA and NHL after being inducted immediately after his first retirement in 1972. Guy Lafleur returned to the NHL after being welcomed to the Hall in 1988.

In that sense, Jágr has made things easy by never stopping.

He’s played parts of eight seasons in his homeland since last appearing in an NHL game for the Calgary Flames on Dec. 31, 2017.

His achievements in the league include 766 goals and 1,921 points in the regular season, plus another 201 points in 208 playoff games. He won five scoring titles, two Stanley Cup rings, a Hart Trophy, three Ted Lindsay Awards and a Masterton Trophy for “perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey.” Plus an Olympic gold and two world championship golds, among numerous other accomplishments. The Penguins retired his number in 2024.

Jágr has played so long that he’s now effectively into his third or fourth generation of peers.

For example, he already had 14 NHL seasons under his belt when Duncan Keith showed up in the league with the Chicago Blackhawks in 2005-06. Keith is among the players due to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame next month, while Jágr plays on.

“He’s truly one of the elite players to ever put on skates,” Tom Barrasso, who twice won the Stanley Cup alongside Jágr with the Pittsburgh Penguins, told The Athletic in 2023. “He’s incredible. I ran into him this summer at an event in Pittsburgh, and he’s still just about as fit as he was when he was in his 30s, still has the desire to play and is still as happy a person as you’ll find on the face of the Earth.”

While it had long been said that Jágr’s primary driving force for continuing to play for Kladno was driven by business interests in his hometown team, that thinking no longer applies. The team was formally owned by Jágr’s father, Jaromír Sr., until he took over the majority interest to help keep it afloat in a league brimming with better-funded rivals. But Jágr sold an 80 percent stake to Tomáš Drastil in January and is now only a minority partner.

Still, he plays on.

When The Athletic’s Matthew Fairburn visited Kladno last season, he found a dressing room full of players who could only marvel at a teammate old enough to be their father or even grandfather.

“This is like a science fiction movie,” Eduards Tralmaks said. “This has to be in some documented history. They need to study this guy. They need some doctors or psychologists to come in and study this guy, because he’s an alien.

“He’s not a f—ing human being.”

And he’s in no rush to take his rightful place in the Hockey Hall of Fame.