If the Moose Jaw Warriors’ moves around the WHL Trade Deadline were any indication, the team is focused on improving its defensive play over the second half of the season with the additions of Kale Clague and Brandon Schuldhaus.

With a loaded forward group that has produced a WHL-high 236 goals through 48 games, the Warriors know that will carry them to victories most nights during the regular season, but as the games get tighter down the stretch, a need to buckle down defensively will be there.

“What Tim is preaching to us is that we’re not going to win as the season progresses if you keep letting goals in, so we’re trying to keep as many pucks out of the net by playing hard defence and we’re learning lots doing that,” said Warriors captain Brett Howden. “We can still do a better job, but we’ve come a long way.”

Howden said that having success in the defensive zone is going to come down to the will and the want.

“It’s a choice if you want to play hard in your own zone and get the job done,” he said. “You’ve got to be willing to want to do it.”

The Warriors have allowed the third-fewest goals in the WHL this season with 143 goals against, which works out to 2.97 goals per game, while they’re scoring 4.91 per game.

As the numbers indicate, the Warriors have one of the best team defences in the league this season, but there have been times when Moose Jaw has struggled at that end of the ice.

“Adding those two defencemen that we added have helped a lot with our defensive game, but there’s still work to be done, we’re still giving up too many goals,” said defenceman Josh Brook.  “We need to make sure that we don’t lose our guys and communicate in the defensive zone.”

In 13 games since returning from the Christmas break, the Warriors have held the opposition to under 30 shots on nine occasions and in many games, like last Friday’s win in Regina, the high shot totals have come from outside shots.

A lot of that comes from the Warriors’ offence being their best defence. The puck possession game that the Warriors play sees them on the attack for the most part throughout games.

“Some games we have the puck a lot and they can’t score if they don’t have the puck on their stick,” said Brook.

Howden added that the forwards can help in other ways, by making sure they’re tracking back to the defensive zone to help out off the rush.

“Coming back hard to help the D out, blocking shots, those are something that we need to do more of and just committing to the plan, it’s real easy, if you want to do it, you can do it and get the job done,” said Howden.

“If we play smart, keep the puck in the right positions, we can keep them hemmed in their zone and that leads to good offence.”

The Warriors will continue working on their defensive play as they get set to battle the Lethbridge Hurricanes and Medicine Hat Tigers during a two-game Alberta road trip this weekend.