You have to look closely, but the sting is still there from last season's first round playoff exit for the Moose Jaw Warriors.

The seven-game loss to the Swift Current Broncos in the 2017 WHL Playoffs was a lesson for this year's team and one that fed them through a record-setting regular season.

The first place Warriors will now look to use that as motivation as they prepare to open the 2018 WHL Playoffs on Friday night with a showdown the wildcard Prince Albert Raiders.

“Last year we learned about that compete level you need in the playoffs and that awareness of knowing when you've got to bear down,” said 20-year-old forward Tanner Jeannot. “Playoffs is a whole different atmosphere than regular season, everyone is going 110-percent for the entire game and there's no room for mistakes or errors.”

The Warriors have been building towards the playoffs throughout the regular season and the team is locked in as they get set to open the series on Friday night.

“Everybody is really excited to get things started up, we get to start at home, which is nice and everybody is really looking forward to it,” said goalie Brody Willms.

“We're a confident group with how we finished off the regular season, but the playoffs are a whole different thing, so we've got to make sure that we're ready and stick to our game plan.”

Willms set a new franchise mark for wins with 37 behind the pipes for the Warriors during the regular season. The next 16 wins are the most important however and the 19-year-old netminder knows that now is the time that he needs to step up for the team.

“The intensity of the game will be a little bit amped up, but the nice thing is playoff hockey is still just hockey,” said Willms. “When there's something big on the line, it's easy to get up for those games, so everyone in the lineup will be ready to go and the fans are going to be a big part of it as well, so when you have that type of atmosphere, it's definitely easy to play.”

Goalie Brody Willms makes a high save against the Raiders last week at Mosaic Place. (Photo: Marc Smith)

Willms has just 20 minutes of playoff experience from the 2016 WHL Playoffs, but he has a team in front of him that's loaded with playoff experience. Defenceman Kale Clague leads the pack with 40 games of playoff experience, while the Warriors team has 229 games played in total. That's compared to the Raiders, who have just 114 games played in the playoffs, including just 15 while in Prince Albert, which came when Moose Jaw knocked out the Raiders in five games in 2016.

Willms said experience or not, they know that the Raiders are going to come hard throughout the series.

“We've just got to be ready for their pressure and the way that they work, so a big key for us is going to be moving pucks quick and using our speed,” he said.

The Warriors won a franchise-record 52 games during the regular season, which included a 5-2-0-1 record against the Raiders in their season series. Moose Jaw will only need to win four games to advance into the second round, but it's going to be a challenge. Jeannot said that they're expecting a good test from a Raiders team that has been playing playoff hockey for the past month to earn their spot in the post-season.

“They’re a pretty fast team, they like to get pucks out in a hurry and get on the fore check quick, so we've got to make sure that guys aren't sneaking behind our D and as forwards, we've got to make sure that we're tracking back through the middle hard and making sure we're not giving up odd man rushes,” said Jeannot.

As virtue of being the regular season champions, the Warriors enter the series leading the Raiders in pretty much every regular season team statistic.

Moose Jaw scored a WHL-best 326 goals this season, while Prince Albert finished the year with 245. The Warriors only allowed 216 goals, which was the fourth fewest in the league, for a league-best +110 goal differential, while the Raiders gave up 250 for a minus-five goal differential.

On the special teams front, the Warriors had the second-best power play unit in the league at 26.3-percent, but the Raiders counter with the second-best penalty kill at 81.4-percent. Prince Albert's 18th ranked power play will be going against Moose Jaw's eighth ranked penalty kill.

All those stats can be thrown out the window once the playoffs start, but Jeannot said that the success they had in the regular season will benefit them.

“The regular season is a build up to the playoffs, we've been playing together all year now and we know what kind of team we're all about and we’ve just got to continue to play our game,” said Jeannot. “We know we have the capability to do, so we’ve just got to keep going.”

The Warriors and Raiders will duke it out in Game 1 on Friday night at Mosaic Place. Puck drops at 7 p.m. and the Pre-Game Show is on the air at 6:40 p.m. on Country 100.

Game 2 goes on Saturday here in Moose Jaw before the series shifts to Prince Albert for Games 3 and 4 on Tuesday and Wednesday at the Art Hauser Centre.