Jarome Iginla traded to Kings by Avalanche

LOS ANGELES -- The closest Jarome Iginla came to winning the Stanley Cup was in 2004 when he was with the Calgary Flames.
Darryl Sutter was his coach.

Almost 13 years after the Flames lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning in seven games in the Stanley Cup Final, Sutter and Iginla were reunited. On Wednesday, the Los Angeles Kings acquired the veteran right wing in a trade with the Colorado Avalanche for a conditional fourth-round pick in the 2018 NHL Draft. Iginla can become an unrestricted free agent on July 1.
Iginla, 39, is in the final season of a three-year, $16 million contract with an average annual value of $5.333 million, according to CapFriendly.com.
With the Avalanche in last place in the NHL standings, Iginla indicated in January he would be open to a change of scenery, for one more serious run at the Cup. The Kings, one point out of the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference, recently expressed interest.
"L.A. was one I heard about first," Iginla said Wednesday. "And once I did, I was very excited about it and just to go with that. Their track record, their success as an organization and the guys they have there, I jumped at it."
Iginla has 1,291 points (619 goals, 672 assists) in 1,535 NHL games during 20 seasons with the Avalanche, Boston Bruins, Pittsburgh Penguins and Flames. He is third among active NHL players in points behind Jaromir Jagr of the Florida Panthers (1,903) and Joe Thornton of the San Jose Sharks (1,381).

This season, he had 18 points (eight goals, 10 assists) in 61 games for the Avalanche, who are 17-41-3. Four of his eight goals have come on the power play.
In joining the Kings, Iginla felt his familiarity with Sutter will help with the adjustment.
"When you're winning, it's great," Iginla said. "He lets you know all the good things. When you're not (winning), I imagine he probably hasn't changed much. He's not scared at all to communicate it, which is a good thing….He is firm and he can be tough. But I think that can be a good thing.
"You always know where you stand with him."
Kings general manager Dean Lombardi said he thought Iginla could be a good fit with one of their top two centers: Anze Kopitar or Jeff Carter.
"If you look at it with Jarome, it's not only going in front of the net, but he's also a really smart player," Lombardi said on a conference call. "A good example is like Brett Hull, in finding those seams and when to show up in them, which I think is really critical in today's game given the way everybody collapses."
For the Kings, it's been five days of major changes. Injured goaltender Jonathan Quick, who missed 59 games because of a groin injury, returned to the lineup Saturday. The Kings acquired goaltender Ben Bishop in a trade with the Tampa Bay Lightning on Sunday. Shortly before the Iginla deal, the Kings traded forward Dwight King to the Montreal Canadiens for a conditional fourth-round pick in 2018. King, selected by Los Angeles in the fourth round (No. 109) of the 2007 draft, was a member of its Stanely Cup championship teams in 2012 and 2014.