Warriors focused on big picture

MOOSE JAW — Alan Millar would like to consider himself a realist.

Granted, the general manager of the Moose Jaw Warriors is disappointed that his team will miss the WHL playoffs for the first time in four campaigns. That said, Millar is the first to admit it was always a very real possibility after graduating the core of a veteran team that made it all the way to the Eastern Conference final last season.

“It’s certainly tough when you’re faced with the challenges we’ve had in terms of being a young team and trying to win more than you lose,” Millar said Tuesday while watching his team beat the Regina Pats 5-0, pulling into a 10th-place tie in the conference standings.

“But we didn’t come into this season with any false hopes or false expectations. We knew we were going to be young and we knew things would probably have to go our way on a lot of nights for us to be a playoff team, but there are lots of things we like moving forward.”

Despite the Warriors’ lacklustre record (24-36-3-6), Millar believes it’s not for a lack of effort. That’s a good place to start when you’re in the early stages of rebuilding a team that will hopefully develop into another contender.

“Our kids have played hard,” he said. “We’ve had 30-plus one-goal games. We’ve found ways to compete on most nights. We would have liked to be in the playoff mix a little longer. We’re disappointed in that regard but not necessarily disappointed in where we’re at in terms of the development of our players and what we feel is the strength of our team moving forward.”

The Warriors’ strength is clearly their young talent, as evidenced by the fact that they had the youngest team in the WHL following the Jan. 10 trade deadline. The team is slated to finish this season with six 16-year-olds on its roster, led by rookie phenom Brayden Point.

“Our 16- and 17-year-old group has some depth in it,” noted Millar. “In our evaluations, we’re trying to balance the progress of some of our young players versus the fact we don’t have a lot of veteran support for them, specifically up front.

“Maybe some guys at the 17-year-old level haven’t quite made the jump we thought but we still feel good about where they could be at 18 and 19 years old.

“We’re not necessarily saying it’s all about building around Brayden Point. We just like what we have in the ’95, ’96 (age groups) and even some of our ’97s. We feel we can take a step next year and compete for a playoff spot and the two years after that we think we’ll have a good team.”

Of course, there are no guarantees. Injuries and underachievement, among other things, could factor into the equation, but those are the risks every team takes.

The Warriors invested a great deal in their future by stockpiling bantam draft picks in previous years. They also traded a number of picks last year to acquire the likes of Cam Braes and James Henry. However, Millar refused to deal from the core of young prospects he had assembled, the same group which now represents a promising future.

The Warriors’ GM also did some fine work this season to fill at least part of the void left by last year’s deals.

In particular, he swung a larcenous trade with the Kamloops Blazers which netted him a future first-round pick and a former firstrounder ( Jayden Halbgewachs), along with defenceman Tyler Bell, for veteran blueliner Joel Edmundson.

“Certainly we gave up some things to add Braes and Henry last year to take a run,” said Millar. “We had an asset in Joel Edmundson that some of the top teams in the league were really coming after us on. We felt with where our team was at and where we wanted to be down the road it was the right decision in the big picture.”

That picture is slowly coming into focus.

“We like where we’re at,” added Millar. “We’ve certainly put a lot of young players in our lineup. When you go with that type of group, you hope it pays dividends in the future. We’re going to have a very, very competitive camp come the fall.

“This game is so funny in dealing with kids and how they develop and how they grow. But I think we have some good pieces in place.” (Centre Ice appears Thursdays.)