This afternoon, Jarome Arthur-Leigh Adekunle Tig Junior Elvis Iginla, the man whose surname means "big tree," will hang up his skates for good, officially announcing his retirement with the Calgary Flames. As he should.
Jarome Iginla is a Cowtown legend, embodying everything about the Flames with his blend of talent and toughness. He is the organization's all-time leader in games played, goals and points.
And, for a brief time, he was a Pittsburgh Penguin.
Remember the pre-dawn hours of March 28, 2013? Remember "All in?" Remember when the Penguins acquired the great Iginla from the Flames in exchange of Kenny Agostino, Ben Hanowski and a first-round pick?
Iginla -- along with Ray Shero's other trade deadline acquisitions: Brenden Morrow and Douglas Murray (aka, "Crankshaft") -- was supposed to restore the Penguins to past glory. After colossal disappointments in 2010 due to Jaroslav Halak, in 2011 due to injuries and in 2012 due to a lack of composure, the Penguins weren't just all-in, they were can't-miss.
Except they did miss. And by quite a bit.
Contrary to the narrative though, Iginla was productive in his short time in black and gold. In 13 regular-season games, the 35-year-old future Hall of Famer scored five goals and six assists for 11 points, averaging 0.85 points per game. That bettered the 0.71 PPG he had averaged in 31 games with the Flames that lockout-shortened, 48-game season. His shooting percentage with Pittsburgh was 14.1 percent, an increase over the 13.2 he posted in his Calgary career. His possession metrics were better than they'd been in his final four seasons with the Flames.
Though the Penguins went 9-4 down the stretch with Iginla in the lineup, it actually represented a step backward after they had won 19 of their previous 22.
Iginla, himself, was not the problem. Neither was Murray nor Morrow, who scored 14 points in 15 games after coming over from Dallas.
The problem was that the right-handed shooting Iginla, with 525 career goals to his resume, was miscast as a left wing by Dan Bylsma and -- despite "Iggy!" and the Golden Goal -- he never meshed with Sidney Crosby.
Obviously, the end came in the Eastern Conference Final, a Boston sweep in which the Penguins, despite their offensive arsenal, inexplicably managed to score just two goals. The Penguins fell eight wins shy, half of the necessary wins to capture the Cup.
Really, though, the end could have -- and probably should have -- come in the first round against the Islanders. Though the Penguins won the series in six games, two of the wins -- including the clincher -- came in overtime. A pretty good argument could be made that the upstart Islanders were the better team in four of those games.
Marc-Andre Fleury, who sported a lowly .885 save percentage after posting an even worse .834 the previous spring in his meltdown against Philadelphia, struggled so badly that Bylsma had turned to Tomas Vokoun in Games 5 and 6 vs. the Islanders.
Even though they cruised past Ottawa in the second round, the Penguins never seemed to gain any traction.
No, Iginla wasn't the Penguins' savior but he didn't cost them either. He put up 12 points (four goals) in 15 playoff games for an average of 0.80 points per game. He'd averaged 0.85 points per game in 2004 when he almost singlehandedly carried the Flames into the seventh game of the Stanley Cup Final.
Looking back on how Iginla's short tenure in Pittsburgh ended, I still remember the tears and the stunned faces in the cramped TD Garden dressing room following Game 4. I hadn't seen a reaction like that in the Penguins room since their loss to Detroit in the '08 Cup Final.
Iginla, however, remained stoic as ever.
He played parts of five more seasons in the NHL, most recently in 2016-17 with Los Angeles, but never got close to winning the Cup. Now that Alex Ovechkin has won his ring, Iginla now might hold the dubious distinction of "greatest player to never win the Cup."
To me, 2013 remains the single most disappointing playoff exit in the Crosby-Malkin era. Even more so than 2010 vs. Montreal.
There was no shortage of scapegoats to go around -- Fleury and Bylsma were the most obvious -- but that season and its aftermath proved to be Shero's undoing in Pittsburgh. Well, sort of.
The GM improved the team with his trade deadline moves, but only on paper. In the process, it hurt the team's chemistry. That 2013 team was probably good enough to win on its own.
That's not to suggest that Shero was negligent, far from it. Any GM would've loved to acquire Iginla, but it's difficult -- if not impossible -- to predict how team dynamics work.
Sometimes, the best trade is the one you never make.
• A few weeks ago a prominent national sportswriter opened a Twitter poll asking fellow sportswriters who were the best athletes to deal with that they've covered. Iginla would certainly rank high on my list along with the Steelers' Troy Polamalu and Ramon Foster. All were -- and are -- genuinely decent human beings.
• If you're looking for your hockey fix, this week marks the start of the World Junior Showcase in Kamloops, B.C. The Penguins are scheduled to have two prospects in the tournament: 2018 second rounders Calen Addison (Canada) and Filip Hallander (Sweden). Jordy Bellerive and Justin Almeida, a 2018 fifth-rounder, were Team Canada invites but unable to participate. Bellerive is still recovering from a June campfire accident while Almeida is out with an undisclosed injury.
• Is there an easier job out there than NHL salary arbitrator? Judging by recent cases, like Winnipeg defenseman Jacob Trouba's, here's how it works: The player wants to make $4 million, the team wants to pay $2 million. Just split the difference at $3 million and -- voila! -- you, too, can be an arbitrator.