Moose Jaw, Sask. – The Moose Jaw Warriors and Regina Pats will lock horns for the first edition of the Trans-Canada Clash this season on Friday night.
The Warriors welcome the Pats to the Hangar in downtown Moose Jaw for the first half of an extended weekend home-and-home set, which will see the two sides meet in Regina on Sunday afternoon.
“It doesn’t matter what time of year, it’s always fun playing Regina,” Warriors head coach Mark O’Leary said.
Preseason doesn’t count in the standings, but the Warriors dropped a pair to the Pats in the exhibition schedule.
Warriors forward Owen Berge said the team will be looking to redeem themselves after those two losses.
“We’re pretty pumped for it,” he said. “We’ve got a little fire under us and we’re ready to go.”
The Warriors are coming off a pair of losses on the opening weekend, falling 5-2 in Brandon and 6-4 at home to Prince Albert. Both games were close with Moose Jaw either leading or tied going into the third period.
O’Leary said there were a lot of lessons learned during the opening weekend.
“You can do some really good things, but at the end of the day, it’s individual moments within the game, individual players understanding that every shift matters, it could be the most important shift that you play all night, it could be the most important shift that the team has,” he said.
“It was a learning opportunity for sure, we’re not going to win every game, we’re behind the eight-ball with two losses early on, but we learned a lot in that opening weekend and hopefully we can use that moving forward.”
The Warriors allowed over 40 shots in both games last weekend.
Coming out of those two games, the team will be focused on tightening up the defensive side of the puck going into their showdown against Regina.
“The biggest thing is our D-zone coverage, everything stems from the D-zone and if we can’t get the puck out of the zone and get hemmed in, that will eventually lead to goals,” Berge said.
“It’s still early in the season, so it’s definitely something we can learn from and if we clean it up, we’ll get the results that we want.”
The Pats came away with a split of their two opening weekend games, winning 3-2 in overtime against the Raiders in Prince Albert last Friday and then dropping a 5-1 game to the Wheat Kings at home on Saturday.
O’Leary said they expect Regina to bring a hard forecheck.
“They play hard,” he said. “They make it real hard for you to get inside ice, so are we willing to manage pucks in the proper areas? Are we willing to check? And races-and-battles, we know Regina will do those things and we need to be ready to match.”
The Warriors and Pats meet on Friday night at 7 p.m. at the Moose Jaw Events Centre. Then the two sides meet for a rematch at the Brandt Centre at 2 p.m. on Sunday afternoon.
Ahead of both games, join the Voice of the Warriors' James Gallo for the pre-game show starting at 6:40 p.m. Friday and 1:40 p.m. Sunday on Country 100.