The Moose Jaw Warriors have had three days to work out some of the issues that plagued them in the 5-1 loss to the Regina Pats last Saturday. The team has practiced drills and training to prepare themselves for another tough three games in three nights this weekend.
“We had a good week as far as conditioning and game like situations, which breaks down to the one-on-one battles, the containment on the defensive side and certainly wanting to win the pucks,” said Warriors head coach Mike Stothers. “There was a lot of one-on-one engagement and I think that benefitted us and prepared us for a very tough Calgary team coming up.”
The Warriors will face the Calgary Hitmen (25-10-1-3) on Friday evening. The Hitmen have won both meetings this season, by one goal.
With opening another three-in-three against opponents higher in the standings than the Warriors, the focus will be simple.
“Just consistency, making sure we are playing a consistent 60 minutes for three games in a row,” said defenceman Travis Brown. “We have to make sure we are outworking them, get pucks on net and keeping it simple.”
The Warriors opened the second half of the season with two roads wins against Regina and Brandon and are hoping to use those games as momentum.
“We had some success last week going on the road. We played two good road games in Regina and Brandon and we hope to just keep feeding off that,” stated Stothers. “Those road games were flashy, but we were pretty consistent in those 60 minutes and that’s what we want to try and do here.”
Stothers didn’t want to make any excuses for their loss to the Pats, as he stated the team used it as a lesson and hopes that it will help them in the long and short run.
“It was tough the first weekend back from a 10 game layoff. We tried to cram as much in as we could in that little bit of a time frame, but I think when it came to game three...I don’t know if it was more physically, but we were mentally tired,” he explained. “We made some mistakes that were uncharacteristic just because of maybe battle fatigue. But, we aren’t making any excuses. We were just not ourselves in that third game. I think we will be better for it in this upcoming weekend.”
For more on this story, read an upcoming edition of the Times-Herald.
