The Moose Jaw Warriors and Red Deer Rebels swapped 19-year-old defencemen on Friday.

Coming to Moose Jaw is six-foot-four d-man Brandon Schuldhaus and a 2020 fourth round pick, while the Warriors send veteran rearguard Colin Paradis and second round picks in 2019 and 2020 to Red Deer.

“Schuldhaus is a guy that we’ve had on our radar for a while,” said Warriors general manager Alan Millar after the trade. “One of the things if we wanted to add before the deadline on the 10th was a big, solid, hard guy on the back-end and he’s a guy that we’ve liked all along.”

Schuldhaus is a Calgary product and in 37 games this season, he has 12 assists and 29 penalty minutes. Over his four-year career split between Red Deer and Seattle, Schuldhaus has four goals, 32 points and 115 penalty minutes in 161 games.

The Warriors feature defencemen with offensive skill like Josh Brook and Jett Woo, but Schuldhaus adds a defensive mindset to the group.

“Brandon brings that size, he brings that hard game, he’s really improved over the past couple of years playing for Steve Konowalchuk and Brent Sutter and has turned himself into a very good penalty killer,” said Millar.

With the Warriors in first place overall in the Western Hockey League, Millar said this trade was about finding a player that fit into what they’re hoping to build to the year and Schuldhaus fits into that role.

“It’s not just about making a trade and throwing a dart at the board,” said Millar. “We like our team, we feel that we’ve made some moves to improve it, we believe our players deserve a lot of credit for improving from within and this was a fit, this was something that fit in with the make-up of our team and made us better getting ready for the second half and the playoffs.”

The Warriors do part with Paradis, who had played 165 games in Moose Jaw after being selected with a fourth round pick in the 2013 WHL Bantam Draft. Paradis leaves the Warriors with one goal and 18 points in his career.

“Red Deer is taking a pretty important piece out of their top-four, a guy that played in a lot of situations against the team’s best players and looking for a body back and this is close to home for Colin, it’s an excellent program with Brent Sutter and he’ll get an opportunity to play more.”

Schuldhaus is expected to join the Warriors on their current three-game Alberta road trip. He won’t be in the lineup for Friday’s game in Calgary.

The WHL Trade Deadline is approaching in five days on Wednesday next week and Millar said that the Warriors will continue to look for ways to improve the team, but don’t want to effect the chemistry of the squad too much.

“We’re happy to get this done early because we felt that this was an important piece, an important need for us to get done before Wednesday,” said Millar. “We’ll continue to work the phones, but we feel we’re in a good position, we’re not looking for a complete makeover of our team.

“The market is what it is, there’s not a lot of defencemen available and prices are very high right now, you’ve either got to make a decision if you’re in or out. We’ll certainly look at ways to complement the group if something makes sense for our hockey club.”

WHL Hot Stove… The Regina Pats also pulled off a big deal on Friday as they reacquired 20-year-old forward Jesse Gabrielle, who is returning from the American Hockey League’s Providence Bruins.

The Pats also added 17-year-old defenceman Jonas Harkins in exchange for prospects, 16-year-old forward Kjell Kjemhus and 15-year-old defenceman Ethan McColm, as well as third and fifth round picks in 2018.