How Productive Will Aging Jarome Iginla Be with the Colorado Avalanche?

Colorado’s offseason signing of Jarome Iginla has been widely acclaimed, and understandably so. One of the game’s most accomplished players, Iginla is respected in equal measure for his impressive work on the ice and for his leadership and character off it. The Avs are counting on significant contributions in both areas, hoping that Iginla will not only provide a key on-ice presence but that he’ll also serve as an elder statesman for a young and improving team.

Ed Andrieski/Associated Press

“Jarome’s track record speaks for itself,” general manager Joe Sakic said in a statement on the team website. “He is one of the top goal scorers of all time, as well as a great leader. His addition will bolster our offense.”

The NHL, however, is a “what have you done for me lately” kind of league. Past achievements are considerably less important than what a player can do in the present and what he’ll do in the future. It’s also an unforgiving league to teams that make sentimental decisions. Colorado has committed to the 37-year-old Igilna to the tune of a three-year deal at $5.33 million per season, and his ability to continue producing at a high level will be paramount.

Aging studies suggest that the Avs have taken on some significant risk with this acquisition. SB Nation’s Eric Tulsky’s study on the scoring rate of forwards is the gold standard here, and he found that most players peak in their mid-20s, score steadily for a half-decade and then see a sharp drop in scoring:

"

In addition, we now have an estimate of how even strength scoring ability changes through a player's 30's. On average, players retain about 90% of their scoring through age 29, but the drop from there is pretty sharp -- they hit 80% at age 31, 70% at age 32-33, and 60% at age 35.

"

Does Iginla follow this general pattern? I’ve charted Iginla’s five-on-five points per hour from ages 30-36 against a projected scoring curve based on Tulsky’s work and Iginla’s scoring at age 30. Tulsky’s numbers only go to age 37, but I’ve projected to 39 at an estimated rate of decline based on the curve from 30-37:

Data via behindthenet.ca

We see that the numbers I’ve used here actually outpace Iginla’s performance for the bulk of this six-year stretch, though the veteran forward had a very strong age-36 campaign in Boston.

The projection above is in terms of five-on-five points per hour; most people don’t think about scoring in those terms. A different way to express it is relative to the rest of the league. If the projection is accurate over the next three years, Iginla will score at a lower-end second-line rate at age 37, at an exceptional third-line rate at age 38 and at an average third-line rate at age 39.

That’s still pretty abstract, but there’s another way we can express it. Using Hockey-Reference.com, I looked for players who had similar age-36 seasons, people who were within 25 percent of Iginla’s goals, points and shots per game at the same age. I ended up with six names (Martin St. Louis, Dino Ciccarelli, Owen Nolan, Bill Guerin, Mike Modano and Mike Gartner), five of whom are goal-scoring wingers. Taking their average performance and adjusting it to Iginla’s 78 games played, they’re pretty much the spitting image of the new Av:

Player	GP	G	A	PTS	Shots
Iginla	78	30	31	61	209
Composite	78	32	28	60	218

What happened to them from age 37-39? Here are the average box scores, extrapolated over 82 games in each case:

Age	GP	G	A	PTS	Shots
37	82	24	32	56	215
38	82	22	30	52	208
39	81	21	24	45	205

If Iginla has good health and plays out his contract, those seem like pretty reasonable numbers. Our comparable group includes some warning examples, though. Nolan retired after a disappointing age-37 campaign, and Ciccarelli followed early into his age-38 season. Only half the players from the original group (Guerin, Modano and St. Louis, who has yet to play his age-39 season) were still in the majors at that point.

Iginla did well to get a three-year contract from Colorado. History suggests he won’t be producing like a $5.0 million player by the end of it.

Jonathan Willis covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter for more of his work. Stats courtesy BehindTheNet.ca and Hockey-Reference.com. Salary information courtesy of CapGeek.com.