Brody Willms won't be between the pipes for the Moose Jaw Warriors when they open the 2018-19 season next month.

It was announced on Monday that the 20-year-old netminder will miss the entire campaign with a hip injury.

"It's super disappointing, nobody wants to have to end their junior career that way, the timing was unfortunate, especially with it being my 20-year-old year, I was really looking forward to coming back and being a leader for the team," said Willms, who won a team-record 37 games last season.

This is the second straight season that the Warriors will lose an overage goalie heading into the season after Zach Sawchenko decided to forgo his final season in the WHL last year and move onto U Sports with the Alberta Golden Bears.

General manager Alan Millar said it's unfortunate for Willms to have his junior career end this way. "You have to look past the immediate needs of your team in the upcoming season and look at how this affects a young man and that’s the way that we’re looking at it," he said.

"Brody is a great young guy that has been around our team for parts of five years, really took a significant step last year in terms of becoming a number one goaltender, but this is a real unfortunate situation, it's a devastating injury in terms of his ability to possibly play again and he has some difficult decisions to make."

Brody Willms makes a save in tight against the Brandon Wheat Kings on Dec. 31, 2017.

Willms is suffering from a hip femoroacetabular impingement, which is when the head of the femur develops a bone spur and grinds in the hip joint on any movement.

"For me, the worst effect is when my hips are internally rotated, which as a goalie occurs all the time in the butterfly position," explained Willms. "I couldn't continue to play every day at a high level with the condition that it's in and the surgery is quite extensive, I've been told that I'll miss the whole season if I underwent that and with no guarantee that I could get back to my full strength and abilities on the ice."

The decision to step away from the game before his final season with the Warriors wasn't an easy one for Willms. He said he will miss being in the locker room the most about this upcoming year.

"I was looking forward to being a 20-year-old in the league and I would have been in Moose Jaw for my fifth year, which not a lot of people can say that they've been with one team for the whole five years, so that would have been special and I'm disappointed that I'm missing out on that for sure," said Willms.

The Coquitlam, B.C. product played four seasons with the Warriors after being selected in the eighth round of the 2013 WHL Bantam Draft. He set the Warriors' single-season record for wins last season, collecting 37 while helping the team to the Scotty Munro Trophy as regular season champions.

Willms finishes his WHL career with a 62-34-8-2 record in 118 games played. He posted a 3.20 goals against average and a .900 save percentage with five shutouts, four of which came in 2017-18.

Millar said Willms really developed into the goalie that they had hoped last season in his first shot at being the number one guy.

"He got better every day, every week and every month (last season)," he said. 

"There was probably a little bit of frustration for him in his 18-year-old year, he had played behind Sawchenko for a couple of years and was hoping to get an opportunity, but that's where he was a real pro and then when he got his opportunity, there was a bit of a learning curve, but he worked at it and it showed on the ice."

Goalie Brody Willms. (Photo: Marc Smith)

Willms came to Moose Jaw as a 16-year-old and served as the team's backup netminder for three seasons before getting a shot last season.

Willms said he loved his time in the Friendly City, "I can't thank the Warriors and the city of Moose Jaw enough for everything that they did for me while I was there, I really enjoyed living in Moose Jaw. I had awesome billets, awesome teammates throughout the years and will definitely miss hanging out with my teammates there every day and going into battle with them," he said.

The defining moment for Willms' Warriors career probably came in his second-to-last game, when he made 58 saves to lead Moose Jaw to a 3-2 triple-overtime win in Swift Current, forcing a seventh game in their second-round series.

The season would end the next night, but it was a performance that will be remembered by Warrior fans for years.

"One of my favourite memories will be just that whole last season, just the success that our team had and how many guys contributed that, not the way that we wanted to end it, but to win the regular season was quite special, especially with the awesome group of teammates that we had," said Willms.

The Warriors will begin their search for a new starting goalie this week as training camp opens on Thursday at Mosaic Place.