Preview: Warriors Prepared for Showdown with Rebels

October 14, 2022 – Western Hockey League (WHL) – Moose Jaw Warriors News Release

Last weekend was the tale of two games for the Moose Jaw Warriors, but also a good early season lesson for the team.

“It showed us how hard it is to win in this league,” Warriors head coach Mark O’Leary said.

The Warriors split their two games last weekend. They beat the Winnipeg ICE 4-1 to hand them their first loss of the season on Saturday and then dropped a 4-1 game in Saskatoon on Sunday.

O’Leary said the two games came down to the team’s compete level.

“That was the biggest difference from one game to the next,” he said. “I know we have more in us than what we showed in Saskatoon and I look forward to seeing it against Red Deer.”

The Warriors will aim for more ups than downs this weekend as they prepare to host two Central Division foes when Red Deer comes to the Moose Jaw Events Centre on Friday and Lethbridge is in town on Saturday.

Moose Jaw will be using the lessons it learned in Saturday’s win over Winnipeg against the Rebels, who enter Friday’s showdown with a perfect 5-0-0-0 record this season.

“We did a real good job in terms of managing our depth from the offensive zone,” O’Leary said. “We didn’t give up a whole lot off the rush, so looking ahead to a real good team in Red Deer, who transition maybe not as well as Winnipeg, but they do a lot of the same type of things and we’ll need to be ready.”

Warriors forward Brayden Yager said Red Deer will challenge the Warriors at both ends of the ice.

“They’re going to be a physical team, like always, they play fast and play hard, so we just have to stick to what we do best, playing fast, playing physical and shooting pucks,” Yager said.

The Rebels have allowed the fewest goals in the Eastern Conference so far this season with a 22-9 goal differential.

O’Leary said Red Deer does it through effort and compete.

“That’s their bread and butter,” he said. “They make things real difficult for defencemen going back for pucks, our forwards are going to have to work to get available and inside home plate in our end and their end, it’s going to be hard.”

Yager said the Warriors need to be on the offensive to have success.

“The best thing for us is just getting the puck out of our zone and then we can let our skill take over,” he said.

The Warriors and Rebels face-off on Friday and that’s followed by Moose Jaw hosting Lethbridge on Saturday. Puck drops on both games at 7 p.m.

You can catch the IKS Media Warriors Live Pre-Game and Post-Game Shows on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube with the Pre-Game Show hitting the air at 6:45 p.m. both nights.

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