Jarome Iginla used to be something of an object of pity among the NHL media and fans when he was a Calgary Flame. If only Iginla had a good center to play with, the saying went, he could be an even greater player and have a better chance at winning a Stanley Cup.

The pity has turned to envy.

The past two NHL seasons saw Iginla play with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin as a Pittsburgh Penguin and David Krejci and Patrice Bergeron as a Boston Bruin. Now, as a member of the Avalanche, Iginla is playing with a center named Matt Duchene.

Perhaps that explained Iginla’s wide grin after Sunday’s Burgundy-White intrasquad scrimmage at Magness Arena, in which Iginla scored a goal to help his White team to a 4-3 victory. While Iginla doesn’t like to say he had no good centers to play with in many of his years in Calgary — “I played with some very good centers,” he says — the truth is the Flames auditioned one center after another to find chemistry with their top forward. The results were mixed at best.

Although Iginla has yet to play a regular-season game with the Avs, his combination with Duchene showed great promise Sunday.

“I enjoyed it a lot,” said Iginla, who scored a first-period goal and assisted on Duchene’s game-winner with 1:07 left in the third period that broke a 3-3 tie. “I think there’s some real good chemistry. I’ve been here about a month now, and although training camp just started a few days ago, it feels like it’s been a few weeks now because guys got together early. I like playing with Dutchy and Factor (Ryan O’Reilly). They’re skilled, they’re quick and they create a lot. You can tell they’ve played together a lot, because they have great chemistry, and I just want to add to it.”

Iginla primarily played on a line with Krejci in Boston last season and led the Bruins with 30 goals. Iginla has scored at least 30 goals in a full season every year since 1999-2000, when he had 29 for the Flames.

Duchene, who has played with numerous right wingers in his five seasons with the Avs, can’t believe his good fortune in playing with a future Hall of Famer.

“I mean, his career speaks for itself, and I thought we had a good first game together, our whole line,” said Duchene, who roofed a wrist shot over the shoulder of goalie Francois Tremblay to win the game.

The O’Reilly-Duchene-Iginla line was often matched up against the Burgundy top line of Gabe Landeskog, Nathan MacKinnon and Alex Tanguay. MacKinnon scored a pretty goal in the second period to tie it 2-2 after a give-and-go with Landeskog.

“That was a tough line to play against,” Iginla said, grinning. “I’m glad I won’t have to do that in a real game. There’s so much skill there with those guys.”

Footnotes. Goal scorers for White were Iginla, Duchene, Dennis Everberg and Michael Schumacher. MacKinnon, Tyson Barrie and Andrew Agozzino scored for Burgundy. Semyon Varlamov allowed two goals in the one period he played, when he made eight saves. … Coach Patrick Roy praised the play of Maxim Noreau, signed over the summer from Europe. … The Avs reassigned 11 players to reduce their preseason roster to 56. Five players were reassigned to the American Hockey League training camp with the Lake Erie Monsters: defensemen Gabriel Beaupre, Max Iafrate, Markus Lauridsen and Joey Leach, and center Marcus Power. Five others were reassigned to their respective major-junior teams: left wing Oliver Cooper (Saint John, Quebec Major Junior Hockey League), defenseman Duncan MacIntyre (Cape Breton, QMJHL), right wing Nick Magyar (Kichener, Ontario Hockey League), goalie Spencer Martin (Mississauga, OHL) and defenseman Kyle Wood (North Bay, OHL). Defenseman Wilhelm Westlund was reassigned to his European team, Hasten of Sweden.

Adrian Dater: adater@denverpost.com or twitter.com/adater