Jarome Iginla’s streak of 30-goal seasons is in jeopardy thanks to a lockout-shortened season.
Iginla’s penalty shot goal against Nasvhille on March 6, 2011 was yet another milestone marker for the captain of the Calgary Flames. His 30th of that season allowed him to join an elite group of NHL players with at least that many goals in 10 consecutive seasons. Iginla joined just nine others to have accomplished the feat and he made it 11 straight years with 30 goals in March 2012. The quest for a dozen, however, has become a whole lot more difficult.
Thanks to a lockout that wiped out almost four months of hockey the NHL will play a 48-game season, making it rather unlikely Iginla’s streak will continue. Just how unlikely can be explained by going a little deeper into the numbers.
The NHL has only ever played one other shortened season, which came in 1995 and had a similar mid-January start. That year, just five players reached or eclipsed 30 goals with Washington’s Peter Bondra’s 34 leading the way. Pittsburgh’s Jaromir Jagr had 32 while Winnipeg’s Alexei Zhamnov, Quebec’s Owen Nolan and Detroit’s Ray Sheppard each had 30.
Getting to 30 goals in a shortened season isn’t going to be easy, at least if you look at the data from the only other abbreviated NHL campaign. However, results from 18 years ago don’t necessarily hold up in this day and age, as the game has changed in fairly noticeable ways.
What might be more valuable is to take a look at recent history and translate it to a shorter season. For a player to score 30 times in 48 games, they must score in 62.5 per cent of the games they play in, assuming they play every game. Only two players did that last season, led by Tampa Bay’s Steven Stamkos, who scored in 73.2 per cent of the games he played en route to a 60-goal campaign. Evgeni Malkin scored 50 goals in 75 games, putting him at a clip of 66.7 per cent.
Taking a look at Iginla over the last two seasons, his goal totals wouldn’t project to 30 when taking 48 games into account. Iginla finished with 32 goals in 82 games last season, which translates to a 39-per cent clip. That would translate to around 19 goals in a shortened season. Even Iginla’s 42-goal year in 2010-11 had him below the pace he’d need this year. Two years ago, Iginla scored in 51.2 per cent of the games he played which would be good for 24 in a compressed year.
These numbers are not an exact science, because goals can be a very random event. Plain and simple, though, Iginla will need to score at almost a career-best pace to extend his streak of 30-goal season streak. Only once in his career has he scored at more than the 62.5 per cent mark he’d need. That was during the 2001-02 season when he hit 50 for the first time.
Does this streak matter in the long run? Not particularly. Iginla will still go into the Hockey Hall of Fame as one of the most consistent goal scorers of his era.