Shallow Frozen Water

the best Flame ever

last night Sportsnet West ran a poll before the Flames game about who the best Flame of all-time would be.  if you didn’t realize the significance of last night’s game then it could really cause you to think.  the Flames have included HoF’ers like Lanny McDonald and Al McInnis in their ranks; they retired the number of Mike Vernon, Theoren Fleury was as dominating a figure for the Flames as anyone in his era, and they’ve broken the 50 goal barrier nine times in a season by 8 different guys.  there have been some significant names that have played for the flaming C (or A) but last night their best player of all time took the lead in career games played for the franchise. 

Jarome Iginla is a hockey superstar.  i definitely have a fantasy hockey affinity for players who are elite offensively but can still mix it up with PIMs and keep the +/- under control.  arguably Iggy contributes in all fantasy hockey categories more than anybody else in the game.  he probably won’t score the most goals in the league, although he did that in 2002 and 2004; he probably won’t win the scoring race, although he did that too in 2002, he won’t be a goon but he knows how to mix it up, in fact in some seasons where he’s scored less he’s been just frustrated enough to PIM more.  Iggy is a first rounder in fantasy leagues everywhere, and if he isn’t, he should be.

so Jarome Iginla won the poll on Sportsnet last night but they were also busy pointing out that it was Jarome Iginla night in Calgary as he became the career leader in games played for the Flames.  in retrospect, nobody else should’ve gotten close to winning that poll, including McDonald and McInnis, and nobody really did.

in fantasy hockey terms you want a player who’ll contribute across the board.  too often we look for the purely point scoring guy as the top option but i’m going to argue that you should be looking at guys who’ll put slightly less points but more PIMs and +/-.  who do i mean? 

well, let’s look at 2005-06 stats as an example.  i’m going to look at guys who are considered elite scoring options but also add in decent +/- and at least 80 PIMs on the season.

Sidney Crosby and Dany Heatley both broke the 100 pt barrier that season.  Sid was -1 with 110 PIMs and Dany was +29 with 86 PIMs.  those are some significant stats.  i would argue that Sid was forced to fight through a lot more that season and he had less talent around him to work with at that time so it’s not all that surprising to see him PIM totals go down and his +/- go up so that they’re more in line with Dany’s totals.

Jarome Iginla and Vincent Lecavalier each potted 35 goals; Iggy was +5 with 86 PIMs and Vinny was even in +/- with 90 PIMs.

Olli Jokinen scored 31 was +14 with 88 PIMs and a bushelful of SOG.

Dion Phaneuf had 20 goals, +5 with 93 PIMs.

Marc Savard broke 90 pts and was +7 with 100 PIMs.

Sergei Gonchar scored 2/3rds of his points on the PP, and was -13 with 100 PIMs.

and Eric Staal hit 100 pts, and was -1 with 81 PIMs.

how many of those guys were MUST targets in the 1st round?  probably only the first 5 if you ask me and that’s only if you believed Olli Jokinen was about to explode like he showed he was going to do.

fantasy hockey is a different game than real hockey.  you have to balance offense with other intangibles that are harder to correlate to winning the game.  all i’m saying, is give me Iggy on my fantasy team and i’ll be a happy camper.  there aren’t many more that i’d rather put on my roster.  if you’re a Flames fan then just enjoy the best thing to happen to hockey in Calgary over the length of the franchise, ok 2nd best to that Cup in ‘89.  if you’re a fantasy hockey owner relying on Joe Thornton or Alex Ovechkin as your best player than why not look into the idea of trading him to the Iggy owner and have him throw in his best defenseman to “even things up”

BEST FLAME EVER!