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Early in the season, catching a lift from the ground floor to the upper levels at the Saddledome, a reporter was quizzing a trusted scout about Tij Iginla’s draft stock.
He replied that the second-generation sharpshooter was probably on track to be selected toward the end of the first round.
The elevator reached its destination, ending that brief conversation.
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Tij has been on a rocket-ship ever since, zooming up the rankings for the 2024 NHL Draft.
The Kelowna Rockets forward now seems like a sure thing to be selected in the top-10 when the name-calling starts Friday night in Las Vegas.
Fans in Calgary have been daydreaming for months about seeing another Iginla wearing the Flaming C logo. Tij’s dad is, after all, the greatest scorer in franchise history.
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They’re terrified though, with such widespread praise for his motor and hockey sense, and with his famous bloodlines, that Jarome’s son will no longer be available when Calgary’s contingent heads to the podium at No. 9 overall.
“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, it really doesn’t,” said Kris Mallette, Tij’s coach this past winter with the Western Hockey League’s Rockets. “It’s been ingrained in him, the competitiveness and the battle, and then you add that with the skill. You can tell that Tij earns everything he gets, much like Jarome did back in the day.
“With Tij, the thing that people may not recognize, is that what you see in games and the highlights, that’s what Tij is every day. That’s every day in practice, every day in the gym. His dedication is beyond his years. He has that pro mentality already. Obviously, being immersed in it throughout his whole life, it’s definitely paid dividends to the success he is having at this point.”
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If the algorithm tends to fill your feed with hockey talk, you’ve likely seen this amusing clip from the draft combine earlier this month in Buffalo.
During one-on-one interviews with the prospects, the Montreal Canadiens — set to make their first pick at fifth-overall — were posing an oddball question.
“They asked, ‘What animal, off the ice, are you?’” Tij relayed to reporters at the event. “And they said, ‘You can’t say lion or dog because everyone says that.’ I wanted to go with one they probably hadn’t heard so, on the spot, I was just like, ‘I’m a Pegasus,’ which is a mythical creature. It’s, like, a horse with wings.
“I said that I feel like I can be kind of sociable and friendly and hang out with the other horses. But then when it’s time to ascend, I have the wings too, so I’ll just try to fly.”
Good answer.
Tij’s father is about as close as it comes to a mythical creature in Calgary. Jarome Arthur-Leigh Adekunle Tij Junior Elvis Iginla was, over his 17-season stint with the Flames, everything from net-filling fan fave to club captain to the face of the franchise. In his prime, he made a habit of carrying both his team and opposing defenders like backpacks. He owns the franchise records for most goals (525), most points (1,095) and most games played (1,219).
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Jarome’s No. 12 now hangs from the rafters at the Saddledome. His famous smile is showcased on a plaque at the Hockey Hall of Fame. It was big news when he returned to the organization last summer as special advisor to general manager Craig Conroy, his longtime linemate and close friend.
Which explains why the entire city and maybe even the entire hockey world seems to be buzzing about the potential that Tij could, if everything falls into place Friday night, be pulling on a Flames jersey.
Another Iggy, imagine that. Expectations would be sky-high, certainly bordering on unfair for a kid who won’t turn 18 until August. For Tij, comparisons to his old man would be constant. Some in Calgary might figure that during any breaks in the action at development camp, he could finish fixing that busted water pipe.
“I think I’ve had a lot of advantages that other kids haven’t,” Tij told media at the draft combine. “I think I’ve been very blessed to have my dad and be in a family that is so into hockey. It’s kind of the main focus in our house. And to have my siblings, as well … They’re really into it too, so I think we have a good environment. We boost each other up. When I see my brother (Joe) and sister (Jade) shooting pucks in the garage, then I’m going after it. I think that’s been good for me and them, too.
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“There might be a little bit extra attention and expectations and pressure. But for me, having my dad and my family, the pros definitely outweigh the cons. I think it’s been good for me to be around the game as much as I have been.”
Craig Button has been around the game — and around the Iginlas — for a long, long time.
He was the lead amateur scout for the Dallas Stars when they selected Jarome at No. 11 overall in 1995.
As general manager in Calgary from 2000-03, he watched the rising right-winger — traded north in exchange for Joe Nieuwendyk, a swap that couldn’t have worked out much better for either side — blossom into an elite marksman and a regular all-star invitee.
Button is now director of scouting for TSN and history explains why he’s as high on Tij as anyone. In his final rankings for the 2024 NHL draft, he has Jarome’s son slotted third, trailing only Macklin Celebrini and Ivan Demidov.
Asked for his assessment of Tij, Button often circles back to one word — “And this is all in capital letters: SUBSTANCE.”
“At some point here, I’m going to put out some of my old reports on Jarome, which will be fun,” Button teased. “When we watched Jarome, we just saw this player who was really competitive, really smart, really effective. He didn’t wow you with a dazzling display of skill, either the skating or the puck-handling. It was just a real competitive approach to the game. We drafted him 11th overall and we thought he’d be a 30-goal scorer, a power forward. Well, we were wrong. We underestimated him. He was way better than we thought. Way better.
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“Now, I watch Tij and it’s the exact same. When I go back and look at my notes, it’s all the same types of elements. People ask me, ‘How’s he like Jarome?’ Well, he’s like Jarome in that hockey sense, substance, competitive fire, will to make a difference. Yeah, he has skills. I mean, Jarome scored 625 goals. I think there’s only 18 other players that have 600 goals in the history of the NHL, so we’re talking about one of the greatest players ever. That’s what I mean when I say we underestimated him. And where I’m really at is trying not to make the same mistake with Tij.”
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Even if he wasn’t the son of a legendary sniper, Tij’s offensive stats would jump off the page.
Traded to Kelowna last summer after winning a WHL title as a rookie role player (but often a springtime scratch) with a stacked squad in Seattle, Tij made the most of the opportunity to be a go-to guy for the Rockets. This talented teen — a left-shot, unlike his dad — racked up 47 goals and 84 points in 64 regular-season outings. He continued to impress the scouts with nine notches in 11 playoff games.
“There was no way, coming out of last year in Seattle, that you could sit here and say, ‘Oh jeez, he might be a top-10 pick,’” Button said. “But you’ve gotta keep watching. And hey, give Tij credit. He’s the one that kept showing people, ‘You’ve gotta take me seriously.’”
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After the Rockets were eliminated this spring, Tij hustled to Finland and helped Team Canada strike gold at the world under-18s. He scored six goals in his first international appearance, capped by the game-winner in a championship slugfest against the U.S. There’s a neat photo from that tournament — Tij with a shiny medal dangling around his neck and one finger raised in the air, his proud pops beaming as he stands on the other side of the glass.
“His shot is elite,” Mallette said, explaining how Tij finished sixth — and second among draft-eligibles — on the WHL’s twine-tickling charts in 2023-24. “It would rival 90% of the NHL at this point. He has a deceptive release. He has a shot that can score from range and catch goalies off-guard.”
Thanks to his work with Puck Preps and FC Hockey, Joel Henderson has been scouting Tij since he was skating as a 14-year-old in the Boston Jr. Eagles program, back before Jarome and Kara and their three kids moved to B.C.’s Okanagan Valley. On his final board for the 2024 NHL Draft, he has Tij rated among the top-10.
Henderson raves about the details in his game — aspects that are even more apparent now that he has grown to 6-foot and 190 lb. — but he is a little uncomfortable with all the hype around Tij’s ability to grip-it-and-rip-it. In his opinion, it’s more of a laser than a cannon. As he explained: “Tij has an accurate shot more than he has an absolutely-cannot-stop-this type of shot.”
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“Right now, and I think moving forward, I do not expect him to have his dad’s shot, and I think that’s something that is good for people to know so they don’t have that expectation,” Henderson said. “Because Jarome would leg-kick and just fire over a shoulder or whatever. His shot, it was really, really lethal. But Tij isn’t that player. He can pick a spot, he can do that sort of thing, but I don’t anticipate he is going to be that type of player. For me, I think once he gets rolling in the NHL, I think it would be more apt for him to have, at his peak, maybe 25 goals and 40 assists rather than be a potential 50-goal scorer down the line.
“That’s more the expectation for me. But I think a difference-maker for Tij is that he has all those other things that his dad had — the effort, the lead-by-example, the joy. That kind of stuff comes out.”
It’s certainly not badmouthing a prospect to suggest that he could be a 25-goal guy at the NHL level.
“Tij, he wants to be the first in every interaction,” Henderson added. “He wants to be the first to a loose puck. He wants to be the one dictating the play, the one making you react to him. He’s going to capitalize on your mistakes. All those sorts of things. And he’s always been that player. Even when he was playing 14U, the thing that you noticed was just that he had so many details to his game, where everyone else was behind in the details. He wasn’t as big and wasn’t as strong, but he was still smart and making plays and making space and capitalizing on mistakes and doing all those sorts of things.
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“So now that he’s really growing into the opportunity and getting bigger and stronger and quicker and more assertive, all of those things that he’s been working on, which is just the foundation and the baseline for a wonderful pro player, they’re all starting to come out this year. In this class, he stands out in that way, Because where other people have question marks, he doesn’t necessarily have those.”
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As the creator of Hockey Prospecting, Calgary-based Byron Bader relies mostly on the numbers to come up with his annual draft rankings. He also takes into account other factors such as birthdate, because “a six-month gap between two players that look equal is huge at this stage.”
Bader’s model is based on the concept of NHL Equivalency, or simply NHLe, a formula that aims to standardize scoring totals across dozens of potential feeder loops. As Bader summed up: “It’s taking all these hundreds of players that you’re looking at every draft, and then putting them on the same level playing field.”
With data that dates back to 1990, Hockey Prospecting has become a go-to resource for those seeking a hint of what can be expected as prospects from a variety of leagues, whether it’s the WHL, OHL, QMJHL, NCAA or one of the many other junior and overseas circuits, eventually converge on the biggest stage.
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In case you’re wondering how Tij stacks up against a certain Kamloops Blazers forward from his own draft-eligible season in 1994-95, Junior’s NHLe is currently a bit better than where dad was at that same juncture. Jarome really ripped up the WHL that following winter, which is why the Flames were so excited to land him in exchange for Nieuwendyk.
“Tij is really interesting, because he doesn’t look like a guaranteed certain superstar,” said Bader, who has the younger Iginla at No. 9 in his rankings. “Save that for Celebrini and Demidov. They have the profile of a player that has never not been a superstar in the NHL. Tij is kind of at that next level. He looks pretty good — certainly, his equivalency this year was well above average — but it wasn’t one of these massive, massive years.
“But one thing he has behind him is he’s so young. He’s born on Aug. 1. He’s probably a top-5 youngest player in the draft, so he has so much runway left to improve. And looking at where he was last year and what he’s done this year, he improved by about 300 percent, which is a huge jump up. So what is he going to do next year? If he takes that big jump like you’re sort of expecting he will when he goes back to the WHL, because he’s probably not going to start with the big club with whoever he is drafted by, then he’s going to look like really high star potential in the model.”
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What he’s going to do next year only adds to the intrigue, to the appeal.
While Tij has primarily worked the wing with the Rockets, word is he’ll be shifted to centre in 2024-25.
As we’re reminded in the lead-up to every edition of the NHL draft, every team covets that cornerstone piece at pivot. Beyond Celebrini, Cayden Lindstrom of the Medicine Hat Tigers and Berkly Catton of the Spokane Chiefs have been billed as the top centres in this class, but Tij has now entered that chat.
“I think it’s good to be able to play both and to have that versatility,” Tij told a media scrum at the combine. “But I’m excited to get back in the middle. I think a lot of the best players in the game … You know, you think of (Nathan) MacKinnon, (Connor) McDavid, (Auston) Matthews, (Sidney) Crosby, those guys are all centres. I think if you can play that position well, it gives you a great opportunity to have a really good impact out there. So I’m excited to get back to that spot.”
Button has been wondering about another potential comparable.
“I’m watching the Stanley Cup playoffs and I’m watching Sasha Barkov,” Button said, referring to the Florida Panthers’ captain, two-time Selke Trophy winner and now Stanley Cup champion. “I’ve never seen Tij play centre so I can’t say for sure, but I know his hockey brain is exceptional and I’m thinking maybe he could be a Sasha Barkov-type. That’s the sense and the feel and the competitive part of the game. Sasha Barkov, the next time you see him on a highlight reel, dazzling you with his skill, let me know.
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“Again, I’ve never seen Tij play centre, but that’s the type of smarts he has, that’s his understanding of the game.”
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That same reporter, the one who was asking about Tij during that elevator ride in the fall, has a favourite question for pre-draft interviews.
You can learn a lot by asking coaches or agents about the most common queries they hear from the scouts. What are the talent-hounds wondering about a particular player?
“I think watching Tij’s game mature throughout the season is something that was really intriguing to the scouts and NHL teams,” Mallette said. “At the beginning of the season, the way he was playing on the ice, it might have looked like he was on an island, kind of by himself. Early on, I think it would be safe to say he was trying to prove a point, to show everybody — Seattle, the NHL teams — that he is a player, that he can score, and he may have looked a little bit individualistic at times. And the biggest question was, ‘What do his teammates think about him?’ My answer was always, ‘His teammates love him.’ That was a big question mark — ‘Is he trying to do too much? What are the other guys thinking?’ But that was killed early.
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“Another big question was, ‘Well, how involved is Jarome?’ As I tell everyone, I didn’t talk to Jarome once all season, besides just saying hello in passing. I saw him in the summer — we met with management, with Tij and myself — and we were like, ‘Listen, let’s let Tij be Tij.’ I’m sure when they were at home, they would talk shop all the time, and that’s great. I do the same with my daughter. But as far as him being coached by Jarome, nope.”
Jarome will be pulling double duty Friday night at Sphere, the latest iconic addition to the Las Vegas Strip.
The 46-year-old will be sitting with his family until Tij’s name is announced, ready to mark a special moment with a handshake or hug or maybe a combination of both. He will eventually, although perhaps not until the picking resumes on Saturday morning, join Conroy and the rest of the Flames’ hockey-ops staffers at their team table.
During a recent interview on TSN, Tij was asked about the possibility of scoring family bragging rights based on draft position. His dad, remember, was selected at No. 11 overall. It seems likely his oldest son will go at least a couple slots higher.
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“But he had a pretty strong career, as well,” Tij reminded with a broad smile. “The draft only means so much. I’ll have to start chipping away at those achievements, as well, if I want to get those bragging rights.”
In that case, this potential chip-off-the-block has a lot of chipping away to do.
Whether he winds up in Calgary or elsewhere, Tij will be under heaps of pressure to follow the lamp-lighting lead of his famous father.
There are always second-generation storylines at the draft — among the most obvious recent examples are Matthew and Brady Tkachuk, Griffin and Sam Reinhart and William and Alex Nylander — but none of their dads are enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Thing is, those who know Tij best and have watched him closest believe that his big-league bloodlines will be a major help as he skates into the spotlight as a first-round pick.
“Jarome was a great player, a great Calgary Flame. We know that,” Button said. “But Jarome and Kara are great parents. I’ve said this about Jarome — ‘He was a great player. He’s a better person.’ Kara is the same way. You watch how those kids are, you watch how hard-working they are and how composed they are. That all comes from parenting. I see lots of kids that have notoriety coming up, just because of skill and whatnot, that don’t know how to handle it. I think that Tij being around it, and being around great parents … I mean, Jarome’s best friends from when he was 10 are his best friends now. That’s what the kids have grown up with. They’re just great people.”
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“I think just having a parent that has gone through the process … ” Mallette started, offering a similar sentiment. “To be able to play in the National Hockey League or to have an opportunity to play in the National Hockey League, that is a feat in itself. To be potentially drafted in the first round or drafted at all, it’s a huge accomplishment. For Jarome, having gone through it and played 1,000-plus games, having your jersey retired, to be in the talks as one of the greatest leaders and all-around power forwards of all-time, he understands the pressures.
“But the thing with the Iginla family is they are very humble. They are very level-headed. They earn everything they get, and that’s the mentality they have. I know that Tij, Joe and Jade are very grateful to be in the position to be taught from Jarome and be around it as much as they were. But they’re all carving their own path.”
On Friday night, we’ll learn if Tij’s path will lead to the Saddledome or another NHL rink.
“From an outside perspective, it might seem like there’s more pressure, more expectations, things like that,” Tij stressed during that combine interview. “But I think for me, my motivation comes from within. I want to succeed because it’s what I want to do. It’s my dream.”
wgilbertson@postmedia.com
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