The Moose Jaw Warriors open the 2021-2022 Western Hockey League season at home Friday night vs. the Saskatoon Blades. Here is a preview of the first squad club brass truly expect to contend for a championship since 2018.
Find the full regular-season roster here.
Proof of vaccination or a negative test will be required for Friday's home opener against the Saskatoon Blades and all games for the foreseeable future at @MosaicPlace.
More details: https://t.co/WcdsPtgHzc#AllInTogether | #WHLOpeningWeek pic.twitter.com/6skfCIY0Q9
— Moose Jaw Warriors (@MJWARRIORS) September 27, 2021
The Returnees
Although six Moose Jaw Warriors went to National Hockey League camps, perhaps only Ryder Korczak had a real shot at making the big jump. All are back and ready for Friday’s home opener.
Korczak, 19, was an NYR third-rounder in the 2020 draft, and has the versatility and footspeed to carve out a roll of some sort in the big-time; but clearly the Rangers would rather he be this Moose Jaw team’s first-line centre and leader up front, instead of scraping and clawing for ice-time in the Big Apple.
Warrior captain Daemon Hunt made it clear right after the Subway WHL Hub that he planned to come back to the Friendly City for one more ride, despite two separate spells with the Minnesota Wild’s American Hockey League affiliate in Iowa already. Like Korczak, the Wild want Hunt to be a huge part of a team with large, contending expectations.
Florida Panthers undrafted camp invitee Eric Alarie, later-round picks Martin Rysavy (the big Czech import taken by Columbus), mobile defender Cole Jordan of the Calgary Flames, and Edmonton Oiler Max Wanner are all very young, and will also look to keep improving in bigger roles at the WHL level.
They all mentioned coming back to Mosaic Arena full of confidence from their respective experiences, while their absences at MJ camp and in the pre-season were positives in that others showed well with the opportunities otherwise unavailable.
The sun is certainly shining in Moose Jaw, folks.
Deep everywhere
Atley Calvert (@AtleyCalvert) and Cade Hayes (@cadehayes14) discuss the Warriors excitement for Friday's regular season return to @MosaicPlace in this week's @MilltekSurveys Rinkside with @CarcSmith.#AllInTogether | #WHLOpeningWeek | #UnitedAgain pic.twitter.com/7UXjdoiHRR
— Moose Jaw Warriors (@MJWARRIORS) September 29, 2021
Indeed, second-year Warriors’ head coach Mark O’Leary has an embarrassment of options all over the ice, and unlike in more recent years, his biggest challenge will be to figure out how to best put the pieces of the puzzle together.
The forward group is about eight-deep with guys who could figure in the Top 6 of many WHL clubs, and it won’t be easy for new faces to land on the two power-play units.
Korczak, Alarie, Brayden Yager, Jagger Firkus, Cade Hayes, Atley Calvert, and imports Robert Baco and Rysavy will all be battling for big offensive roles, so the battles up and down the line-up to get in and stay in below that group look to be fierce.
Interesting to see speedy 2004-born Tate Schofer, an undrafted signee out of the Regina Pat Canadians U18, break camp with the club ahead of guys like former second-rounder Ben Riche or returning 2002 Kade Runke. More on where Runke is off to later!
On the blue-line, the Top 4 of Hunt, Team Canada U18 Denton Mateychuk, Cole Jordan, and Max Wanner writes itself, while a cluster including off-season acquisition Matt Smith, returnees Lucas Brenton, and Braden Miller, and impressive rookie Matthew Gallant look to all compete for those last two spots on a nightly basis. More on Gallant later.
Boy does this roster look good on paper!
All eyes on the net
The biggest issue the Warriors had at the Regina Hub was in net, though rookie 2003 Brett Mirwald showed plenty of potential in likely more ice-time than anybody expected. He will be back with a point to prove, and the confidence of the club behind him.
The off-season began with the hopes – slim as they might have been in hindsight – of landing young Swedish superstar Jesper Wallstedt, the Minnesota Wild first-rounder in 2021. That disappeared as it became clear that he has a solid spot as a starter in the excellent Swedish Hockey League, so Moose Jaw general manager Jason Ripplinger had to pivot fast.
That pivot ended in the direction of a deal with Lethbridge, in which the Hurricanes sent 20-year-old Carl Tetachuk to the Warriors for a conditional pick, and so the Lethbridge native will have the job to lose to begin the campaign. Tetachuk had great numbers behind great Hurricanes squads between 2018 and 2020, winning 24 and 21 games in 37-plus starts over those two seasons, so O’Leary and crew will be hoping the struggles of 20-21 were a Covid-infused anomaly.
It has been written by this writer, and by others, that there are a lot of movable pieces on this club if Tetatchuk does not cut it, so we will see if he is the answer.
Yager watch
It was an up-and-down pre-season for Yager, the club’s No. 3 overall pick last year, but little should be made of that.
What should be made more of is that the 2005-birth year was critical for the club at the Hub, facing the bigger match-ups with Korczak out for a solid chunk of that campaign due to a jaw injury. Yager, 16, still managed seven goals and 18 points – a number good for second on the team – and played in all 24 games. To say Coach O’Leary was thrilled with what he saw from the Saskatoon native is probably an understatement.
The comparisons to Regina’s wonder boy Connor Bedard are wildly unfair to Yager – Bedard is obviously a generational talent- as they are to anybody else in the 2005 birth year, but that Yager is as integral a piece to this deep group of Warriors as any veteran speaks very clearly of his ability and physical maturity.
For the record, nobody can get Yager to admit that a match-up with Bedard is anything other than any other game against a good buddy – but call this writer a bad journalist if you want, but there is no way he is telling the whole truth.
Breakout pick
The deal that sent 2002-born Cory King to the Seattle Thunderbirds probably meant two things: the Warriors’ coaching staff do not care a lot what hand their defenders shoot with, and that they believe in Matthew Gallant.
Gallant, a 2004-born righty from Langley, BC, was an undrafted camp invitee, and lit it up in pre-season, leading the whole team – forwards and defencemen – in points with six in five games.
Another member of Bedard’s 2019-2020 West Van Academy U18 Prep squad, Gallant is one of two right-shot defenders to break camp, along with Wanner, while the other six shoot left.
Mateychuk was one of the breakout stars in the WHL last year, and it could very well be that Gallant will do similarly this time around.
Options down the road
Roster building in the world of hockey has just as much to do with relationships as anything else, and so for Moose Jaw GM Ripplinger to have his brother Todd down the road with the Junior A National Championship host Estevan Bruins is a decent resource in sticky situations.
The Bruins will start the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League season with veteran Moose Jaw properties Boston Bilous, Nolan Jones, and Runke in tow (among a star-studded cast from elsewhere, of course), but there is a goalie, a defenceman and a forward not too far away in case things get complicated with injuries or whatnot.
