Warriors Open Pre-Season In Swift Current
(Story courtesy Marc Smith, DiscoverMooseJaw.com) Development and effort are going to be the focus on Tuesday for the Moose Jaw Warriors.
The tribe is making the trip to Swift Current for their annual rookie game against the Broncos at the Credit Union Iplex. In the game, they’ll be dressing a roster with three 15-year-olds, seven 16-year-olds and seven 17-year-olds.
Tuesday’s game definitely won’t be the prettiest hockey of the season, but it will be a good chance for the Warriors coaching staff and management to see what they have in store for the future.
“It’s going to be scrambly and it’s going to be erratic,” said head coach Mike Stothers after the team’s afternoon practice at Mosaic Place on Monday. “All I want to see is what I usually want to see from a Warriors team. I want to see a good work ethic, I want to see commitment, I want to see us playing the right way and I want to see a never die attitude.
“I’m not going to be worried about the outcome, that’s not important to me, I want to see our kids compete.”
Those are words that you don’t normally hear for the highly competitive Warriors bench boss, but he understands what he’s working with on Tuesday.
For some of the players, mainly the three 1998-born players (Brett Howden, Ryan Bowen and Brody Willms), this will be their first WHL action and they will be working to show the coaches what they’re capable of.
The players have been on the ice for five days now with training camp starting last Thursday and running through Sunday, and then two more practices on Monday. Stothers said he’s happy with what he’s seen out of the players so far.
“First and foremost impressed with the conditioning, whether it was a returning veteran or even the younger guys, their improvements from prospects camp until now were dramatic and impressive,” he said. “It’s been very competitive. The guys are realizing that there might not be a lot of jobs open, but the spots that are they want to make a real run for it.”
Monday consisted of the coaching staff trying to implement some of their system for the players and give them a first look at what will be expected out of them to play with the Warriors.
“You hope that they’re retaining at least something,” said Stothers. “It’s a little overwhelming for them, I realize that. They want to do well, they’re a little bit nervous, but if they can go home at the end of the day and have learned one or two things about what it takes to be a Warrior, I think that’s a positive step for us.
“(Tuesday’s) game isn’t going to be a great game textbook-wise, but if I see us implementing some of the stuff that we talked about than I think its progress.”
There will be a few veterans in the line-up against the Broncos as forwards Colton McCarthy, Josh Uhrich and Miles Warkentine will suit-up. So too will import defenceman Alexei Sleptsov as he gets his first taste of WHL action.
He’s been with the team for about a week now, but Stothers said he likes what he sees out of the 17-year-old Russian.
“Very, very impressed,” he said. “His feet are always moving laterally, forwards and backwards, he’s got a great release, he looks like he might have the potential to be a power play guy for us, so the early reports on him have been excellent.”
Sleptsov will be joined by Royce Rossignol, Ryan Gardiner, Tyler Brown and Dustin Perillat on the backend. The forward group will include the three veterans, Howden, Bowen, Jayden Halbgewachs, Brandon Del Grosso, Ben Duperreault, Ethan Lazaro and Ethan Williams. Willms and 16-year-old Zach Sawchenko will be in goal.
The Warriors re-assigned eight players following the Black and White Game on Sunday: 2013 Bantam Draft picks Darren Rizzolo, Jacob Garman, Dylan Dix and Blake Bargar, as well as goalie Alex Corley and forwards Zac Whitby, Gianluca Esteves and Matthieu Gomercic.
The Warriors and Broncos will hit the ice at the Credit Union Iplex at 7:00pm on Tuesday night. After that they won’t have another preseason game until September 6th in Brandon.
