How is the Utah Mammoth’s top prospect doing after hip surgery?

Tij Iginla has homework from the Utah Mammoth.

The 18-year-old forward, selected sixth overall by the team in the 2024 NHL Draft, underwent successful hip surgery in December, which has kept him off the ice.

But this is a key moment in the developmental stage of his career — including the push to make the Mammoth roster in the coming years.

So, he is trying to make use of the unfortunate circumstances.

“We have some projects where we’ll give him a player who we think has a similar skillset, similar type of player in different areas of the game,” said Lee Stempniak, who is the director of player development for Utah. “What does he see? What does he think? Is there anything that he can apply? What doesn’t he like? Really encouraging him to watch video from a number of different angles. Studying a player, studying a team.”

Iginla asked Stempniak for the team’s playbook from training camp, too, to familiarize himself with Utah’s systems in all three zones.

“He wants it,” Stempniak said. “He wants to learn and make the most of his time.”

After missing the majority of Utah’s rookie and training camp last season with a lower-body injury, Iginla played 21 games — and had 32 points (14 goals, 18 assists) — for the Western Hockey League’s Kelowna Rockets before having to address his hip issue.

For Derrick Martin, who took over as head coach of the Rockets in January after serving as an assistant, it was disappointing. Iginla, after all, was a primary driver of Kelowna’s offense and a leader in the room. Martin was not worried, though.

“I think the thing that people need to know about Tij is he is mentally as strong as they come. He’s not a guy that is looking backwards, he is looking forward,” Martin said. “If there is any player who can go through something like that in the winter and find a way to be ready and even better at the start of the season next year, it is that young man.”

That is the goal for Iginla. While he is missing out on game and practice action, the hope is that with his work behind the scenes — in physical therapy and virtual coaching sessions — the injury won’t significantly delay Iginla’s professional timeline.

Stempniak has made it a priority to keep up with Iginla while he recovers. Usually, Utah’s development team is out watching their prospects in person, getting on the ice with them if they can, talking to the player, their current coaches and doing the occasional Zoom call to go over video. That process has changed a bit as Iginla works through the rehabilitation of his hip.

“He’s back with his family ... getting physical therapy where he’s living. There’s a lot of conversation between our medical staff and the physical therapist there on what they’re doing and what they need,” Stempniak said. “From the development staff standpoint, we try to make as much use of the time as we can. There’s the relationship piece which we still build, talk to Tij, get to know him, check in on him and be there for anything that comes up off ice.”

Utah and its staff have experience monitoring its prospects through major injuries. Maveric Lamoureux, for one, has already had two shoulder surgeries by the age of 21. The defenseman’s first was in 2022 (during his draft year) and the second was in March 2024.

Of course, much is on the onus of the individual, but Lamoureux battled his way back both times and skated in 15 NHL games with the Mammoth this year and 42 with the AHL’s Tucson Roadrunners; he had 13 points (two goals, 11 assists) there.

“Maveric Lamoureux went through some injuries, too,” Utah general manager Bill Armstrong said. “The biggest thing is reps. It is just being able to get enough reps to mature at the right rate. When you’re injured, it’s hard to do that. It doesn’t mean you can’t do that, but it just makes it a little bit harder because he’s lost all that experience this year. It takes a little bit of time to get that back.”

Getting this recovery right is crucial for everyone involved. For the Kelowna Rockets, they hope to have their star forward back and make a run for the Memorial Cup next year. For the Utah Mammoth, they are preparing to make Iginla a core piece of their future offensive group. For Iginla, it is his livelihood.

Armstrong did not seem overly concerned when talking about Iginla’s trajectory to being an NHL regular despite the injury. He reflected, with a laugh, back to the first conversations they had with Iginla during interviews at last year’s combine.

“I think we were joking with him about 50 goals or something like that. Can he score 50 for us and that kind of stuff,” Armstrong said. “We got this kid that had a lot of confidence, that was really exciting to talk to. He was energetic. He wasn’t nervous.”

It is part of the reason Armstrong used his first-ever selection in the NHL Draft for the then Utah Hockey Club on Iginla. Armstrong said Iginla reminded him of Logan Cooley — whom he selected third overall in the 2022 NHL Draft — in terms of their passion and compete for the game. When your team is drafting in the top 10, you select the best player available, but the character has to be there, too.

Iginla’s commitment to excellence was evident to more people than just Utah’s front office.

“The very first days that I met him, he was sneaking out on the ice to go and skate at the other end to just have his skates on and get a skate before the practice started,” Martin said. “I didn’t know it then, but I certainly know it now — he wants to be a pro. He has pro habits and he just loves the game. It oozes out of him.”

It helps that Iginla’s father is Jarome Iginla, the Hockey Hall of Fame forward who spent 20 years in the league. Jarome was the 11th overall pick in the 1995 NHL Draft and was known for his strong shot and physical presence. He understands the road that lies ahead for his son.

Stempniak, who spent 14 years in the NHL on 10 different teams, played with Jarome on the Calgary Flames from 2011-13. Now, he is helping Tij take the next step past this injury.

“Just knowing who Jarome was as a competitor, his work ethic and how he played the game, I‘m sure he’s imparting how important those things are to Tij,” Stempniak said. “I think just by virtue of being around him, being around the game, being around the locker room a lot — you absorb things, you know how to carry yourself. You sort of see behind the curtain what it takes day in and day out to play at this level and stay at this level.”

Iginla returned to some sense of normalcy by the end of the Rockets’ season in March. The team saw him in Edmonton (where his family lives) when they played the Oil Kings, and Iginla soon made his way back to Kelowna, too.

“Getting him around the guys was really big,” Martin said. “You see the smiles on our players’ faces when he is there, and that is what he does. He is never sitting there sulking or feeling bad for himself.”

Iginla is nearing development camp with Utah — which is in late June and early July — before NHL and WHL training camps in September. It seems he will be back to full health by then and ready to prove that he is not just recovered, but better than before.

“I think for us, when it comes to training camp, we’re looking for him to play to his strengths. That is using his speed, making plays with the puck. He’s really dangerous off the rush,” Stempniak said. “The thing we encourage all young players to do is do what makes you an effective player. For Tij, it’s going to be playing with the puck and making plays.”

Martin is, simply, excited to see another layer of Iginla’s game. The hip surgery doesn’t scare the head coach. Instead, it indicates to him that one of his best players is finally playing without a nagging injury. Iginla was nearly unstoppable with it, and now he will show what he can do without it.

“If anything, he’s probably given his body some time to rest and recuperate. What we’ll have at the start of next year’s camp — both the Kelowna Rockets and the Utah Mammoth — is a 100% healthy Tij Iginla,” Martin said. “We both had him in our camps last year at a fraction of that. I think that moving forward, it is actually going to help his development, not hinder it.”

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