They might not have came away from the opening weekend with a win, but the Moose Jaw Generals continue to be happy with the progress that the young, new team is making to start the season.

The Generals lost their Sask. Midget AAA Hockey League regular season opener 3-1 to the Contacts in Saskatoon on Saturday night.

The game was tight throughout, but Moose Jaw was unable to find a scoring touch until late in the game and were eventually undone by penalties.

“I thought we played really well,” said Ray Wareham, head coach of the Generals. “We came out right from the drop of the puck and played hard and just couldn't find a bounce.”

There's been plenty of turnover on the Generals roster this season coming off hosting the 2014 Telus Cup in April. The team has been focusing on making progress each time they step foot on the ice and they were able to do that again in the season opener.

“There's lots of encouraging things to build off this week,” said Wareham. “Hopefully we can clean up some things, as far as the penalties go and be better for it on Thursday night.”

The Generals were able to out shoot the Contacts 10-8 during a scoreless first period and then a double-minor for a hit to the head ended up costing them the opening goal in a down third period.

Wareham felt that they came back and played a strong third period, but again couldn't find the scoring touch to get back into the game with Saskatoon leading 3-0 before Caleb Reiss scored late.

“I thought we won the first period and I thought we won the third period,” said Wareham.

“We don't like the outcome obviously, but we really like how we played and how we responded to the physical stuff. It's an intimidating rink to play in and for our young guys, 14 new faces, to respond like they did is really encouraging.”

The biggest area of concern for Wareham coming off the weekend was the penalties that they took. Saskatoon went 2-for-8 on the power play and were able to turn the game in their favour during their four-minute advantage in the second.

“We want to be aggressive and we took some that were 200-feet from out net and we're just going to have to learn that you can't take those because those are the ones that are going to hurt you,” said Wareham. “They weren't undiscipline penalties or anything like that, they were just a little over aggressive at times, but that's something that we'll learn with time.”

The Generals were without forward Turner Ripplinger on Saturday as he served a one-game suspension, but otherwise Wareham added that they were coming out of the weekend fully healthy and ready to go for a three games in four nights weekend ahead.

“We'll just keep plugging away, hopefully our guys will wind up finding the back of the net a little more and hopefully we'll get some wins,” said Wareham.

Moose Jaw travels to Wilcox on Thursday to face the Notre Dame Argos before hosting the Contacts on Saturday and the Prince Albert Mintos on Sunday.