It seems just like yesterday that Tanner Jeannot and Jayden Halbgewachs were making their debuts with the Moose Jaw Warriors as 17-year-olds.
Now the two players are preparing to enter their fourth and final season with the Warriors as the team gets set to open training camp in just under a week.
“Time flies, it’s crazy,” said Jeannot, who originally made the team as a listed player. “Last thing I remember, I was a 17-year-old coming into camp for the first time, so it goes by really fast and I definitely want to enjoy every minute of this year.”
The Warriors enter this season with four 20-year-olds on their roster, marking the first time in a while that the team won’t be adding an overage player through a trade.
Jeannot and Halbgewachs have both grown up in the Warriors’ system, while Brayden Burke and Spencer Bast were both acquired through trades last season.
Halbgewachs, Burke and Jeannot accounted for 3/5s of the Warriors’ top-five scorers in the 2016-17 season, meaning not only will the team not have to look for 20-year-olds, they could have three impact players in that crucial age group.
Last season was a breakout year for Halbgewachs, who led the Warriors in scoring with 50 goals and 101 points. He said he’s worked hard over the summer to top that production this season.
“Each year you’ve got to get better and better. I’ve put up more and more numbers each other and that’s the plan going into this year,” said Halbgewachs. “I went back home and trained hard, but going into this year, I have more confidence and that will make me improve as a player, so hopefully the numbers will show.”
After hitting two major scoring marks last year, Halbgewachs said he isn’t feeling any extra pressure to perform this year.
“You can’t get too comfortable, you’ve got to come out ready to play each and every game, it might be easier, but you’ve still got to push yourself forward,” said Halbgewachs, who attended the Vegas Golden Knights’ development camp this summer and will be heading back to their training camp at the start of Sept.
Jeannot posted career-highs across the board last season as well with 19 goals and 52 points in 71 games.
He said he focused on improving his game in a number of different areas over the course of the offseason.
“I just tried to work on everything over the course of the summer, I did a lot of shooting, a lot of skating, and going to Washington helped, I learned a lot there about how to improve my game,” said Jeannot.
The Oxbow, Sask. product attended the Capitals’ development camp this summer after going to training camp with the Minnesota Wild last year.
“They have a guy for everything there, a coach for skills, a coach for skating, so they definitely knew what they were talking about and I just tried to be as much of a sponge as I could,” said Jeannot.
The Warriors saw their season end with a first round playoff exit last season and Jeannot said that has definitely stuck with him over the offseason and served as motivation.
“We thought we had the potential to go last season, so we definitely want to show everyone what we can do because we know what a special team we have this year,” he said. “We’re not going to think about the doubters, but definitely try to prove them wrong.”
With this being their last year in the league, Halbgewachs and Jeannot both want to go out on top.
“It’s nice to hear from other people that our team is going to be a good team, we haven’t really heard that in the past and having an early exit last year makes us want it even more this year,” said Halbgewachs.
The Warriors will open the regular season with seven of their first eight games at home, which is a good chance to start out on a hot streak.
“The first part of the season is where you can’t fall down, you don’t want to be chasing, so we need to bring our game right out of the gate and be ready all year,” added Halbgewachs.
Training camp opens next Thursday for the Warriors. Click here for the full schedule and roster.
Thu, May 2, 8:00 AM
Labour, Seasonal
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