“Sometimes it’s just picking up something small,” Iginla said. “Whether it’s a thing like change of direction … just more of those little skills and movements that I’m trying to continue to build into my game.”<\/p>\n
His training camp task is equally straightforward.<\/p>\n
“My goal is definitely to make the team,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Every year he takes a big step,” Armstrong said. “He went back there and embraced being a center … He’s really kind of grown his game. He’s not just an offensive player, he’s a two-way guy with great offensive instincts and ability.”<\/p>\n
Like Iginla, Desnoyers understands making the leap will come down to mastering details. He’s coming off a strong third season with Moncton of the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League, with 78 points (22 goals, 56 assists) in 45 games in 2025-26.<\/p>\n
His approach is simple.<\/p>\n
“My mentality is I’ll always aim for the highest thing,” Desnoyers said. “The highest level I can play this year is the NHL. So I’ll focus and do everything I can this summer to achieve that.”<\/p>\n
Armstrong said he believes Desnoyers has already taken meaningful steps.<\/p>\n
“He’s gotten bigger and stronger since the season ended,” Armstrong said. “He’s been working on his skating. He’s just fine tuning his game.”<\/p>\n
One sequence that particularly impressed Armstrong came during the World Junior Championship, when Desnoyers willingly shifted from center to wing.<\/p>\n
“They asked him to move to the wing, he moved to the wing and he was excellent,” Armstrong said. “He’s the type of kid with his hockey sense and his skill and ability, he can play with really smart players.”<\/p>\n
After the signings of Anders Lee<\/a> on July 1 and Barrett Hayton<\/a> on July 8, and the acquisition of Vincent Trocheck<\/a>\u00a0in a trade with the New York Rangers on July 1, the Mammoth now have a logjam at the center position, with eight possible skaters able to fill the four spots on the lineup sheet.<\/p>\n Rather than viewing those additions as roadblocks, Armstrong sees them as creating the kind of internal competition winning teams need.<\/p>\n “We talked about coming in and taking someone’s job,” Armstrong said. “You’ve got to come back with a little bit of snarl. You’ve got to be ready to play exhibition. You’ve got to basically take somebody’s job.<\/p>\n “Caleb and Tij have the ability to come in and make our team. Both can play wing, both can play opposite sides. There’s a lot of flexibility for our club … When you have somebody that comes in and pushes to make your team, you can always make openings for that player.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“Sometimes it’s just picking up something small,” Iginla said. “Whether it’s a thing like change of direction ……\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":809319,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-809318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=809318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/809319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}