In 1988, the Pittsburgh Penguins finished last in the Patrick Division and missed the playoffs by a whisker, yet Mario Lemieux collected the first of his Hart trophies.

	Jarome Iginla Right Wing Calgary Flames Profile
	2001-2002 SEASON STATISTICS GM G A PTS +/- PIM 76 47 41 88 28 73

In 1959, Andy Bathgate, toiling for the non-playoff New York Rangers, took home hockey's most coveted individual bauble. And he didn't even win the Art Ross that year, winding up third, eight points behind Dickie Moore of the Canadiens.

Five years prior to Bathgate's triumph, Al Rollins became the most unlikely MVP in league history. He was awarded the Hart (and, quite probably, the Purple Heart) for surviving a season tending goal for the pathetic Chicago Blackhawks. Rollins, by the way, went 12-47-7 that year.

So there is more than statistics and hope in making a case for Jarome Iginla right now.

There is precedent.

Iginla leads the NHL in goals (47) and points (88). He has scored nearly 25 percent of his club's goals and been a part of nearly half of its total offensive output. He has single-handedly kept interest brewing and the fans coming out in Calgary.

Yet the Flames will miss the playoffs for a sixth straight season. How, many voters will ask themselves, can someone be enshrined as MVP when his team collapsed like a foolhardy adventurer trying to cross the Sun's Anvil in on foot in summer? And therein lies the Iginla quandary.

"It's not up to me," replies Iginla diplomatically, when asked what criteria should be deemed important in the balloting. "Other people make those decisions."

If Calgary cracks the Sweet 16, he's a lock. As it stands, there'll be a lot of undecided voters from the Professional Hockey Writers Association wondering if maybe they shouldn't throw their lot in with stars on contending teams; with, say, a Patrick Roy or a Mats Sundin. It's almost been an unwritten rule that the "player adjudged to be the most valuable to his team" should at least be playing past mid-April, if only for appearance's sake.

"If we don't make the playoffs, I just hope Iggy isn't penalized for it," says Flames' center Craig Conroy. "I hope the voters can look past that. He's our superstar. Him and Roman (Turek).

"This is about who's been the best player in 2001-2002. And that's Iggy. "He scores goals. He sets up plays. He hits. He'll fight. He's meant everything to us."

This is an odd year in that there is no one clear-cut favorite for the Hart and that in the late going, another rising star on a team that could miss out on the postseason photo-op entirely -- Montreal goaltender Jose Theodore -- has suddenly found his name being bandied about for MVP consideration. There is something to be said for manful martyrdom.

That Calgary's playoff agony has been extended this spring says more about the Flames' lack of depth than about Iginla's brilliance. Should he be punished because arguably no individual this season felt more burdened by demands to be good, if not great, each and every night? Is he to blame that Marc Savard spent the season pouting and Rob Niedermayer was a bust so Calgary remained a one-line team?

And if the voters can't get past the no-playoff brainlock, they should think back. To Lemieux. To Rollins. To Bathgate.

"I played with and against Andy Bathgate," says Flames executive Al MacNeil. "I hated playing against Bathgate and then when we finally wound up on the same team, in Pittsburgh the first year of expansion, I found out what a terrific person he is.

"Iggy's the same way. He'd be hell to play against -- so big and strong and competitive -- but he's just a dream of a person. I mean, I used to watch Bobby Hull sign autographs until his hands were raw. Iggy does that, too.

	“	Should our record be considered when they're voting for the Hart Trophy? Absolutely not. Look at his record. ”
		— Greg Gilbert, Calgary coach

"The great ones -- Hull, Gretzky -- have time for people. They're great on the ice and off the ice. Iggy has done all he could to make this season a success for the Calgary Flames."

This is rarely seen, if not entire unchartered, terrain that Iginla is attempting to traverse. Since the first expansion back in '67, only two men, Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky during his black-and-silver days in L.A., have topped the scoring charts for non-playoff teams (Gretzky, for the record, was bested by Detroit's Sergei Fedorov for the Hart that season, '93-94). Iginla is set to become the third.

"OK, you tell me: What more could Iggy have possibly done this year to help this team?" asks defenseman Denis Gauthier. "Without him, we're not even close to a spot. It hurts him, playing out west and in Canada. We've talked about this, about whether or not our missing the playoffs could cost Jarome the MVP. If it does, that'd be a shame.

"Without Iggy ..." Gauthier shakes his head. "He's carried this team on his shoulders a lot of nights. Too many nights."

Not only has Iginla carried a team, he's shouldered with the responsibility of revitalizing a once-proud, now-stagnant franchise. The Flames may be out of the playoffs again, but for a city starved for any form of NHL excellence, there is still a reason to go to the rink. There is still him. Still Iginla. Still something worth rooting for.

It should also be noted that the years Rollins and Bathgate captured the Hart, there was only a two-in-six chance of missing playoffs. In Lemieux's no-playoff MVP campaign, only five of 21 teams were left on the outside looking in.

Now, 16 are in, 14 are out, raising the odds considerably against any player booking tee-times once the regular-season has wrapped up.

"I was lucky enough to be able to watch Bryan Trottier when I was playing on the Island," says Calgary coach Greg Gilbert. "He was a prototype Hart Trophy winner. I see a lot of the same attributes developing in Iggy.

"Should our record be considered when they're voting for the Hart Trophy? Absolutely not. Look at his record."

And imagine what their record would be without his record.

"For a quote -- 'small market' -- unquote Canadian team to have a Hart Trophy winner right now would be a very big thing," says MacNeil. "It would show that we're still capable of developing elite players. What he's done for our team this year is beyond argument. This isn't about the Calgary Flames, it's about Jarome Iginla.

"You can talk about this and factor in that and make arguments either way all day long. Bottom line, he deserves it.

"Because unless I'm mistaken, it's the Hart Trophy that's under discussion here, not the President's Trophy."

George Johnson of the Calgary Herald is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.