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  • Iginla still searching for first goal as a Bruin

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    Iginla still searching for first goal as a Bruin

    Anthony Travalgia October 16, 2013
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    For a guy who has 530 career National Hockey League goals, it should come to no surprise that finding the back of the net has been an easy task for the future-Hall-of-Famer, Jarome Iginla during his NHL career. But so far in his short tenure as a Bruin, scoring goals has been nothing close to easy for the Edmonton Alberta, Canada native.

    In five games with the Bruins this season, Iginla has just one point, an assist, which came on Chris Kelly’s second goal of the year in this past Saturday’s 3-1 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets.

    The scoring chances have been there for Iginla, but he hasn’t been able to light the lamp just yet. Bruins head coach Claude Julien knows Iginla can be, and will be better with the puck.

    “I think he can shoot the puck a lot better than we’ve seen him because we know he’s a good shooter. So whether that’s pressing or whether that’s circumstances I don’t know” said Julien after the Bruins’ 3-2 loss Monday afternoon to the Detroit Red Wings.

    “But he’s been around the league long enough, he’s going to find his way and he’s going to score some goals for us and he’s going to be the player that we thought he would be for our hockey club. So right now it just isn’t there and I see maybe a little hesitation in shooting where, when a player has confidence, their release is a little quicker too.”

    Anytime a player comes and joins a new team there is a sharp learning curve that player is forced to get around as he looks to build chemistry with his new line mates. It seems like the chemistry is not quite there yet between Iginla and his line mates David Krejci and Milan Lucic.

    “I wish I could use that excuse but no. I’ve been here before and it’s something that’s pretty much a yearly thing” said Iginla. “You go through it, you get chances and part of scoring goals is you want to get chances consistently and that’s what you really count on as far as the percentages and it goes in streaks and you want to make the good ones as long as you can and the bad ones as short as you can. But the biggest part of it is just trying to get those chances consistently and staying positive and keep shooting it.”

    Although he hasn’t found the back of net, Iginla knows the goals will come, and they will come in bunches. Iginla leads the team through five games with 19 shots on goal.

    “Because what happens is you stop shooting it and then you start thinking too much so I’ve been fortunate to play with Krech [David Krejci] and Looch [Milan Lucic] and they’re playing very well and I’m getting lots of great passes and great opportunities. There’s no excuses, I’ve been here many times before and I believe I’ll come out of it and it’s about opportunities and I’m getting tons of those and I’m just going to keep going. It’d be nice to contribute and get the first and get going.”

    A big reason as to why Iginla has been so successful at scoring goals over the course of his career has been due to his talents on the power play, especially with his lethal one-timers. Iginla had a few prime scoring chances in Mondays contest on the power play, but couldn’t get those one-timers to go.

    “I think I had a few of them but two were good ones, one I just missed probably by a couple inches the top right corner, one I missed by a mile and that was just trying too hard and too excited and just missed it. But I thought – when you’re feeling it those go in and unfortunately they didn’t. It was an important time of the game; it could have been a big difference. And you get out there in those situations and you definitely want to help the team and feel responsibility, all of us out there.”

    Once Iginla gets going it’s going to be fun to watch as he adds to what is already an impressive resume. Iginla currently sits behind former Bruin Jaromir Jagr and Teemu Selanne among active players in goals.

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