For the first time since Game 6 of last year’s Eastern Conference Championship, the Moose Jaw Warriors and Saskatoon Blades will lock horns at the Hangar in downtown Moose Jaw on Thursday night.
The Warriors are expecting a stiff test when they square off with their East Division rivals.
“We’ve just got to play to our structure, play to our game and if everyone’s on board, we’ll be successful,” Warriors defenceman Connor Schmidt said.
Moose Jaw enters the game after a week off following two losses, one in a shootout and the other in overtime, to the Swift Current Broncos last week.
Since those two losses, the Warriors have went through some changes after two big trades and adding 20-year-old defenceman Keaton Dowhaniuk as well as 18-year-old d-man Ryder Ellis.
Warriors head coach Mark O’Leary said the week of practice came at a good time for the team.
“With the new guys coming in, to get their feet underneath them here and get familiar with what we’re trying to do system-wise and more importantly, just getting familiar with their new teammates, that’s important to get feeling comfortable,” he said.
Schmidt felt like the Warriors put in some good work as they prepared for the Blades.
“The key [this week] was checking, winning races and battles and I thought we did a good job of that,” he said.
Last week’s loses pushed Moose Jaw’s winless slide to five games, but the team is focused as they get set to battle the 14-5-1-1 Saskatoon Blades, who lead the Eastern Conference.
“We did a lot of really good things [in last week’s games against Swift Current],” O’Leary said. “We put ourselves in a position to win a hockey game late, but more importantly, sticking with those details, whether it’s the races and the battles or details within the structure, we did a real good job of sticking with that for sixty minutes.”
The Blades are coming off a 5-3 win over the Medicine Hat Tigers on Tuesday night, which was their third straight win.
19-year-old forward Ben Riche leads Saskatoon with 14 goals and 31 points in 20 games, while Moose Jaw product Rowan Calvert is second of the team in scoring with 10 goals and 21 points in 21 games.
“Their 05-group has been really good this year and some other guys that have stepped in with some timely scoring, so we expect more of the same in terms of their structure and we just need to be ready to compete,” O’Leary said.
The Warriors and Blades face-off at 7 p.m. on Thursday night at the Moose Jaw Events Centre. Tickets are available by clicking here.
If you can’t make it to the game, tune into all the action on WHL Live and Country 100, the Pre-Game Show hits the air on Facebook and YouTube at 6:45 p.m.