Jarome Iginla is only five points away from reaching the historic 1,000-point plateau with the Calgary Flames after Saturday’s must-win game at Rexall Place.
The future hall-of-famer from St. Albert tallied twice and notched one assist as the Flames willed their way back from a 4-1 third-period deficit to beat the beleaguered Edmonton Oilers 5-4 in a shootout.
“I honestly didn’t know I was five away. I knew I was kind of coming close because people were mentioning it, but I didn’t know I was that close,” said Iginla, while surrounded by reporters inside a happy Flames’ dressing room. “It will be neat to one day look back on it but right now it’s all about making the playoffs and I’m just excited that we found a way to win this game tonight.”
Iginla’s second goal of the match, the 477th of his career, ignited the Flames comeback with 14:05 remaining.
A few shifts later, his assist on Curtis Glencross’ goal to make it 4-3 was the 995th point in 1,101 games for the three-time Olympian.
The Flames captain is also the franchise leader in games played, goals and points and is second in assists with 518, behind Al MacInnis’ 609.
Iginla, 33, will end the season as the Flames’ leading point producer for the 10th straight year. He also owns the NHL’s longest streak of 20-plus goal seasons at 12.
“I’ve been very fortunate to play a number of years here with some great players and because of that, I’ve had great opportunities to help out offensively,” said Iginla, who has victimized the Oilers for 29 goals and 71 points in 81 games.
Skating into tonight’s pivotal home game against the Anaheim Ducks, a team the Flames are chasing for a playoff spot in the western conference, Iginla shared eighth spot in league scoring with 75 points and was tied for fourth in goals with 36 in 77 games.
Earlier in the month, Iginla became only the 10th player to reach 30 goals in 10 straight seasons. The select company he joined includes Mike Gartner (15), Jaromir Jagr (15), Phil Esposito (13), Wayne Gretzky (13), Bobby Hull (13), Marcel Dionne (12), Mike Bossy (10), Jari Kurri (10) and Darryl Sittler (10).
“I definitely feel extremely blessed to hit that and be able to do it for 10 years. It’s something that when I started out, I never would have dreamt that,” Iginla told reporters after the feat.
His 30th goal was sniped on a penalty shot against Nashville Predators’ netminder Pekka Rinne in Calgary. To the delight of Flames fans, he shifted to his right then slipped the puck through Rinne’s legs. His second career penalty shot goal on seven tries tied it at two apiece, as the Flames went on to win 3-2.
As special as the milestone marker was for Iginla, the comeback charge against the Oilers was equally as exciting and important.
“That’s as big a win that we’ve had all year,” he said of the Calgary squad that was mired in 14th place in the western conference in December before briefly climbing as high as seventh. “That was a playoff game for us. We know that was our playoff lives on the line.”
A loss would have sunk Calgary’s ship with five games left and lots of ground to make up against teams with games in hand.
“We have life and hopefully we’ll really use it and build some momentum and go.”
The Flames were coming off three losses in a row during a trip through California, when they handed the Oilers their ninth straight defeat.
“Those aren’t easy games when the one team, Edmonton, doesn’t have a ton to lose and they’re young and they’re playing with that excitement to knock a rival off,” Iginla said. “In the first couple of periods Edmonton was skating and working and free flowing and we were just a little bit tight. When you start getting tight, your feet stop moving, your mind stops working and you just kind of watch and we were watching them for two periods.”
Iginla knotted the count at one on the power play in period two and struck again with the man advantage two minutes after the Oilers pushed ahead 4-1 in the third. Steve Staios scored against his former team to force overtime with 1:55 to play. The only goal in the shootout belonged to Alex Tanguay.
“It was pretty much our season going into the third period,” Iginla said. “When we were down 4-1 we could’ve just packed it in but all year we’ve found ways to not give up and find ways to get back in games and that’s huge. Nobody quit tonight and we haven’t quit all year.”
