NHL power forward closes book on 20-year career
Calgary Flames captain retires with 1,300 points in 1,554 career games
CALGARY (CP) — Jarome Iginla shed no tears, but generated laughs Monday as one of the NHL’s premiere power forwards closed the book on a 20-year career.
The 41-year-old entertained a packed news conference at Scotiabank Saddledome, where he spent 16 seasons as a Flame and almost a decade as captain, with funny stories and his heartfelt love of hockey.
“I was very fortunate to have a very blessed career,” Iginla said.
He bade farewell with the graciousness that made him a beloved player in Calgary.
That congeniality was always in contrast, however, to his fierceness on the ice.
“If we needed a fight, if we needed a big hit, if we needed a big goal, he was there to do it,” said his former Flames linemate Craig Conroy, now Calgary’s assistant general manager.
“For about three or four years, I don’t think there was a better player in the NHL.”
Iginla’s 625 career goals ties him with Hockey Hall of Famer Joe Sakic for 15th in NHL history. An assist in his final game April 9, 2017, with the Los Angeles Kings gives him an even 1,300 points in 1,554 games.
But few players have impacted a franchise the way Iginla did in Calgary, where he played from 1996 to 2013.
He’s the franchise leader in goals (525), points (1,095), games played (1,219) and gamewinning goals (83).
“For 16 years, Jarome set our culture,” Flames president Ken King said. “When we look back, we had our own bona fide superstar.”
Speed, power and gifted hands, with toughness that gave him room to employ those skills, made the six-foot-one, 210-pound rightwinger difficult to contain. That the captain and team’s leading scorer frequently dropped the gloves made him unique in the league.
Iginla twice scored 50 goals in a season for the Flames, surpassed 40 goals four times and reached the 30-goal mark 11 times.
He led the Flames to the Stanley Cup final in 2004, when Calgary lost in seven games to the Tampa Bay Lightning.
But a Cup eluded Iginla in what will be a Hockey Hall of Fame career. The Flames didn’t come close again during his tenure.
Calgary was about to miss the playoffs a fourth straight season when he was dealt to the Pittsburgh Penguins in March of 2013.
Iginla played for Boston, Colorado and Los Angeles to finish out his career.
He underwent hip surgery in 2017. Iginla skated with a minor pro team in February to test his hip and the market for a return, but the Stanley Cup as a player will elude him.
“It took me a few days or a week when you realize you’re not going to get that chance and that dream is not going to come true, but I have so many things to be thankful for.”
Iginla won gold with Canada at the 2002 Olympic Games. Eight years later, he had a hand in one of the most historic goals in Canadian history.
His pass set up Sidney Crosby’s Olympic overtime winner in the gold-medal game against the U.S. in Vancouver in 2010.
Crosby yelled “Iggy” and Iginla, who was getting hauled down by a U.S. defenceman, got a pass away from the boards to Crosby.
“Thankfully it went the right way. Crosby scores,” he said. “We’re grown men throwing our gloves off, hugging each other, screaming.”
Iginla and his wife Kara live in Boston where their three children play competitive hockey.