The regular season doesn’t open until Friday, but the Moose Jaw Warriors suffered a big loss on Tuesday.

The team announced that 18-year-old defenceman Josh Brook would be having surgery on a wrist injury and miss the next 8-12 weeks, taking a big piece out of the Warriors’ defensive core heading into the season.

Brook suffered the injury at Montreal Canadiens rookie camp in an exhibition game against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

“There was a time frame to consider waiting and seeing how it healed and potentially rehab and would he be able to manage the injury throughout the year, but between Montreal, our team, Josh’s family and his agency, we all determined that it was in his best interest to get the risk fixed,” said Warriors general manager Alan Millar on Tuesday.

Brook will have surgery on the injury on Friday in Montreal and could return to the lineup as early as mid-November and more likely sometime in December.

“This will insure that he will be healed and 100-percent at the right time of the year and isn’t something that would weigh on his mind during the year, trying to play and deal with that injury,” said Millar.

There was some big expectations on Brook after he put together a stellar 17-year-old season and ascended to being considered the Warriors’ number one defenceman.

He had eight goals and 40 points in 69 games during the 2016-17 season and was able to lead the team in scoring during the playoffs with two goals and seven points in seven games.

After being selected by the Canadiens in the second of the 2017 NHL Draft, Brook spent the summer training in Montreal to get ready for the season.

“He was disappointed, he worked so hard this summer and wanted to move on at Montreal camp and play more rookie games and he didn’t get that opportunity,” said Millar.

“There was some discussion about waiting a certain amount of time to see how the injury was doing and healing, and right from the get-go, we got the impression from Josh that he felt this was the best direction for him and everybody agreed to move forward.”

The Warriors will now have to fill Brook’s spot in the lineup for the first 2-3 months of the regular season.

Millar said the team will look to some of the younger players still with the team to help fill that void left by Brook.

“For the time being, it’s an opportunity for a younger guy. You can’t overreact with an injury and try to make trades, defencemen are an important position for all teams and there’s not a ton of guys out there,” said Millar.

“It’s going to be a process of playing our young guys and it’s going to be a process at any position in how we’re going to try to improve our team between now and January and we’re not going to read and react on this injury alone.”

The Warriors currently have six defencemen with the team and can expect to have Dmitri Zaitsev and Oleg Sosunov returning from their respective NHL camps over the next week or so.

Moose Jaw opens the regular season on Friday in Prince Albert. The team’s home opener is on Saturday night against the Raiders at Mosaic Place.