D'Arcy McGrath
May 12th, 2004

You can pick them out from a mile away.

The Eastern media person taking his chair on the "desk" of a cable sports show, the booth of a popular radio broadcast, or in front of his word processor penning an opinion piece.

The subject? The Calgary Flames

The knee jerk answer? Jarome Iginla.

That's it ... oh and that hot goalie that sounds like a computer company.

But that's really it.

"If you stop Jarome Iginla, you stop the Calgary Flames."

"Jarome Iginla is carrying that team on his back through the playoffs."

You know the quote type. We've seen it again and again and again. Heck we'll likely to continue to hear and see it as these playoffs grind on towards the Cup Final.

But is it true? Has Jarome Iginla singularly done more for his hockey team than the best player on each of the other three conference finalists' roster?

Absolutely not, says the numbers, but then why let good hard facts get in the way of a good dime store analysis? Much easier to dismiss an outfit than actually look into the results and do the leg work to see what's going on out west.

Team Stats

The Flames and Flyers are tied for the goal lead in the NHL playoffs this spring, each hitting for 38 goals through two games in their respective conference finals. The Flyers have played two less games.

Tampa Bay and San Jose fall in line in the third and fourth positions with 31 and 30 goals respectively.

In terms of goals per game, the Flyers lead the way with a lofty 2.92 goals scored per game through their run, Tampa sits second at 2.82, Calgary third at 2.53 and the Sharks behind Colorado in 5th with 2.31.

So 38 goals for the Flames? That must translate to 20 goals and 18 assists by Jarome Iginla right?

Player	%G
Patrick Marleau	23.3%
Jarome Iginla	18.4%
Vincent Damphousse	16.7%
Fredrik Modin	16.1%
Martin St. Louis	16.1%
Brad Richards	16.1%
Vincent Lecavalier	16.1%
Keith Primeau	13.2%
Martin Gelinas	13.2%
Ruslan Fedotenko	12.9%

Think again.

Iginla to this point has scored seven times and added seven helpers to lead the league with 14 points in the playoffs.

That works out to Iginla scoring 18.4% of his club's goals and being in on 36.8% of the 38-goal total. A great performance indeed.

A gaze around the league, however, shows that his contributions are pretty much in line when it comes to the top offensive player on each of the four clubs.

The Flyers leader in goal scoring, Keith Primeau, has been in on 13.2% of the Flyers tallies, and their point leader, Alexei Zhamnov has had a hand in 31.6% of the team's output - both down a good chunk from the Iginla marks in Calgary.

So far that Eastern media guy is looking pretty smart.

But hold the presses just a minute.

Player	%P
Fredrik Modin	41.9%
Martin St. Louis	38.7%
Jarome Iginla	36.8%
Vincent Damphousse	36.7%
Patrick Marleau	33.3%
Brad Richards	32.3%
Alexei Zhamnov	31.6%
Jonathan Cheechoo	30.0%
Niko Dimitrakos	30.0%
Jeremy Roenick	28.9%
Craig Conroy	28.9%
Martin Gelinas	26.3%

Patrick Marleau has scored 23.3% of the Sharks goals, and Vincent Damphousse has been on 36.7% of the team's offence. That puts Marleau well ahead of Iginla, and Damphousse in a virtual tie with Calgary's captain.

In Tampa Bay, all four of Fredrik Modin, Martin St. Louis, Brad Richards and Vincent Lecavalier have scored 16.1% of the Bolts goals, point leader Modin has had a hand in 41.9% of the team's offence, St. Louis 38.7% - both in excess of Iginla's contributions.

The Flames have four players - Iginla, Martin Gelinas, Craig Conroy and Shean Donovan - supplying at least 10% of the team's goals, a number that is very consistent across the top four teams.

The Flyers also have four main marksmen in Zhamnov, Primeau, Jeremy Roenick and Michael Handzus.

The Lightning have five, with Ruslan Fedotenko added to the aforementioned group of four.

And the Sharks have four as well with Johnathon Cheechoo and Alex Korolyuk helping out Marleau and Damphousse.

Essentially, if Jarome Iginla's back is tired from carrying a hockey team he must have some serious company around the league, his contributions to this time certainly don't support this man as team theory that has become so popular.

The Flames group of secondary scorers may not be the household names seen in other markets, but the club is getting 64% of it's scoring points and 72% of it's goal scoring from players other than big #12.

So next time a question is poised surrounding the Calgary Flames, and how they are defying odds with this improbable playoff run, please dust off the old mouse, hit the World Wide Web, scan a roster or two, learn some names and get aquatinted with this little known hockey team out in Western Canada.

Too many are missing a pretty good story.