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Soon after the December 1995 trade of young Jarome Iginla from Dallas to Calgary for veteran Joe Nieuwendyk, the general manager of the Dallas Stars speculated the team might someday regret the deal.

"We could be watching him for a long time," Bob Gainey said then.

Who would have ever guessed just how long?

Iginla, the Stars' first-round draft pick in 1995, scored the 365th goal of his career Monday and passed Theoren Fleury as the all-time greatest goal scorer in Calgary Flames history. He is the Flames captain, is only 30 years old and is respected as one of the NHL's greatest current players.

So is the price going up on the 1999 Stanley Cup? You could say so.

It would be difficult to find a Stars fan who wouldn't make that trade. Nieuwendyk, a two-time 50-goal scorer for Calgary, was a key catalyst on the '99 champions and the 2000 Stanley Cup Finalists. It was pretty clear what he meant to the Stars in the 1998 playoffs.

Nieuwendyk was sidelined by a hit by San Jose's Bryan Marchment. I can still hear the quote from Nieuwendyk: "It was a dirty play by a dirty player."

Dallas, which won the Presidents' Trophy for the first time in '98, fought valiantly against Detroit in the Western Conference finals but came up short to the eventual Stanley Cup champions. The Stars got Nieuwendyk healthy in 1998-99 and added Brett Hull, and the season is history.

But as Iginla's résumé grows, is it worth the water cooler discussion to ask what would have happened if the trade didn't occur?

The Stars were a veteran team then, and they needed Nieuwendyk's patience and calm. He helped Mike Modano become a better center. He helped Jamie Langenbrunner become a better winger. He was the perfect fit at the perfect time.

Would the Stars have been able to handle the gantlet of Detroit and Colorado without Nieuwendyk back in the day? Probably not.

But would they have been able to become even better in the early 2000s? Iginla scored 28 goals for the Flames in 1998-99, so he definitely could have helped the Stars that season. He had 29 in 1999-2000, so maybe he could have helped push them over the top in the Finals against New Jersey. He had 31 goals in 2000-01 and then broke out for his monster 51-goal, 96-point season in 2001-02.

Could he have done that in Dallas' defensive system? Probably not. Could the Stars have percolated and waited for Iginla to mature with the clashing personalities of Hull and Ken Hitchcock and Ed Belfour? Probably not. Would Gainey have taken a different path in building his team had Iginla been able to show his dynamic style early enough? Maybe.

Maybe the Stars would have had a core of Iginla and Modano and Langenbrunner and Brenden Morrow in the early 2000s. Maybe they would have been able to add a Pierre Turgeon or Jason Arnott at that time and found a better fit for the two talented centers.

It's an interesting debate and one that certainly gains legs with Iginla's ever growing legend.

But every person has a place where he fits, and Iginla fits in Calgary. He is the face of that franchise, and he probably would have never been able to become that in Dallas. So maybe things worked out this way for a reason.