Jarome Iginla scores his 500th career NHL goal, all with the Calgary Flames on Saturday, January 7th.

Jarome Iginla lets off a cannon from the high slot that screams into the top corner.

Per Puck Daddy:

Imagine the surprise across Canada on Saturday night when, during the Hotstove, Elliotte Friedman said that Jay Feaster would in no way consider trading Jarome Iginla to make the team better.

“[Feaster] said Jarome Iginla is part of the solution in Calgary, not part of the problem,” Friedman explained.

Very odd. One thing that’s supposed to be part of a general manager’s job, in any sport, is making tough decisions. Those that aren’t arrived at easily or happily, but which must be pursued (or at least explored) to their fullest extent, in an effort to make sure the team they’re tasked with shaping or improving continues to be competitive.

Usually, the hard decisions in the NHL start coming around now. Thanksgiving in the U.S. is a pretty good delineating point to telling when a team has merely struggled out of the gate or needs a shakeup to have any hope of making the playoffs.

In the case of Iginla, we have a 34-year-old player who used to be elite and now is merely very good, at least in theory.  He has just 11 points in 22 games and is a minus-8 for a team that is a whopping four points ahead of Columbus in the standings. He has looked disinterested in the defensive zone — something not often seen from the Flames captain — and punchless in attack.

He is, reportedly, not on the same page as Brent Sutter (though earlier in Hotstove, Eric Francis revealed that letting the coach go after this 9-12-1 start is also not being considered).

And at the same time, the number of teams who would be lined up around the block to acquire him for rafts of picks and/or prospects is likely quite high. Iginla is getting older, not younger, and the clock is ticking on his viability as a trade target. There’s a lot to be said for selling as high as possible, and if Mike Milbury has to step in to be the voice of reason in this whole mess, then things have gone very wrong indeed.

The only solution for the Flames is obvious: Trade Iginla and anyone else who will fetch anything resembling a good price.

The team is going nowhere in a hurry, but trading Iginla would mean two things for Feaster: 1) He’s already running up the white flag on a team which he said repeatedly and unequivocally over the summer could make the playoffs, and 2) He’d forever be The Guy Who Traded Jarome Iginla.

And imagine if the prospects and picks he got for the best Calgary Flame ever didn’t pan out five years down the line? Hoo boy.

Jarome Iginla pots a pair via heavy one-timers that are blown past Jimmy Howard.

Per NHL.com:

Philadelphia’s Danny Briere has repeatedly made clear his desire to go to the 2011 NHL All-Star Game presented by Discover later this month in Raleigh, N.C. On Wednesday, he was given that opportunity.

Briere was named as the replacement for Calgary’s Jarome Iginla, who cited health concerns about his grandmother as the reason for dropping out of what would have been his sixth All-Star Game, which ties the Calgary franchise mark also held by Al MacInnis and Theo Fleury.

“It is always an honor to be a part of the NHL All Star Game but unfortunately I have to decline this year,” said Iginla. “I just lost my grandfather in the spring and I have learned that my grandmother is not doing very well. With the way the season goes I don’t get too many opportunities to see her, and as much as I was looking forward to being in North Carolina for the All Star Game, I just know that my mind will be elsewhere.”

“My grandparents were second parents during my childhood and have been major influences on my life,” continued Iginla. “I have been blessed to have them. And so after talking it over with my family I thought it best that I use the break to spend some time with her while I am still able to do so. Thank you.”Briere made it quite clear last week, when the 42-man roster was revealed by NHL Hockey Operations, that he was unhappy with being left off the roster for the game, which will be played Jan. 30 at RBC Center.

Despite leading the Eastern Conference in points at the time of the selection, the Philadelphia Flyers placed just one player — winger Claude Giroux — on the roster.

“I’m not surprised that I was bypassed,” Briere told reporters after the selections were announced last week. “What I’m surprised is that we don’t have more than just one player. There’s no doubt that Claude was deserving; but with our record I thought that we could have had at least another one. … I think we deserved at least another representation. But it might be favorable for our team to get that weekend off and get to rest a little bit more.”

Now, Briere will happily forego the aforementioned rest to become Philadelphia’s second representative at the All-Star Game festivities. With a team-leading 41 points — one more than Giroux — Briere certainly has the credentials to be in Raleigh.

Like the rest of the 42-player pool, Briere won’t find out which All-Star team he will be playing for until the Friday of All-Star Weekend when the NHL All-Star Player Fantasy Draft powered by Cisco, which will be televised live on TSN and RDS in Canada and VERSUS in the U.S. at 8 p.m., is held and the All-Star captains and their alternates pick the 21-man rosters.

On Tuesday, Carolina’s Eric Staal and Detroit’s Nicklas Lidstrom were selected as team captains. Alternates will be named at a later date.