Colorado Avalanche forward Jarome Iginla joined an elite group Monday night at the Pepsi Center against the Los Angeles Kings, becoming the 19th NHL player in history to score 600 career goals. The 38-year-old Iginla who broke into the league 1996 as a 19-year-old, is the fifth player to reach the milestone in the last 10 seasons, joining Jaromir Jagr, Brendan Shanahan, Joe Sakic, and most recently Teemu Selanne who scored his 600th career goal in 2010.
Iginla connected on a bit of a broken play 19 seconds into the man advantage at the 12:20 mark of the 3rd period. Moments earlier Drew Doughty was sent to the box for interfering with Matt Duchene in front of the Los Angeles goal. Tyson Barrie and Blake Comeau assisted on the play, with Iginla’s cross ice pass deflecting off the skate of Jake Muzzin and into the net behind Kings backup net-minder Jhonas Enroth.
“I just put it toward the net, and obviously I got a very fortunate bounce,” Iginla told NBCSN immediately after the game. “It felt good. It feels really cool.”
Iginla scored his 599th goal against the Arizona Coyotes on December 27th, but has been held scoreless in the last three games. The goal gave the Avalanche a 3 goal lead and they cruised the rest of the way to a 4-1 win over the Kings.
Iginla notched his 1,000th career point, vs the St. Louis Blues in a 3–2 win on April 1, 2011, and scored his 500th goal the very next season on January 7, 2012 against Niklas Bäckström of the Minnesota Wild in a 3–1 victory. At the time he became the 42nd player in league history to score 500 goals, and the 15th to do so with one organization.
Drafted by the Dallas Stars with the 11th pick of the 1995 NHL draft, Jarome Iginla was traded 6 months later to the Calgary Flames, along with Corey Millen, for the rights to forward Joe Nieuwendyk who was then in a contract dispute with the Calgary. Iginla made his NHL debut vs the Chicago Blackhawks in the 1996 Stanley Cup playoffs, playing in two games for the Flames immediately after his junior season ended.
Iginla would go on to play parts of 16 seasons for Calgary being named the 18th team captain before the 2003 NHL season. He’s also played for the Pittsburgh Penguins and Boston Bruins. His contract with the Avalanche runs through the 2016-17 season.