[wingmaker]

I think it's really interesting to look back on the Iginla era in Calgary in the light of what has happened the last two seasons. I have no idea where this team will end up at the end of the year, but whatever the record, they play with heart, with confidence, and they play for each other. Players go down and others step up. This is largely due to the increased talent depth of the organization, but there is also a different attitude that this team has that the Iginla-era teams never had. Looking back on the teams post 2004 to when Iginla was traded, the most common description would have to be "underacheaver". Iginla is a phenomenal player, a great human being, but I for one am certainly looking back and wondering why he couldn't get a team of players that included top-of-their-abilitiy Kiprusoff, Regehr, Tanguay, Cammalleri, Langkow, etc to play with the kind of enthusiasm and spirit that the current Flames embody. The coaches changed, some with slightly more or slightly less success, but the truth is that the Flames never achieved their potential in those years, or even really came close to it. Did the aura of Iginla eclipse the team? Maybe. Did the expectations weigh too heavily on the locker room? Maybe. Was there division within the locker room? Maybe. But it is quite startling how quickly the turnaround has occurred. And for all the posts about how poor Hartley's first season was, it is interesting to see that in a lock-out shortened season with very little training camp, he was able to get his players playing with a lot of heart shortly after the trade deadline in that first season and has not looked back. Add this to the criticism of both Brent Sutter and Playfair who cast aspersions on the locker room mentality of the team and one has to wonder what kind of leader Iginla really was. I don't mean this as an anti-Iginla post, I just am startled at the difference in aura surrounding the team pre and post Iginla in a very short period of time.