19-year-old defenceman Spenser Jensen in action last season with the Warriors.

The opening weekend was disappointing for the Moose Jaw Warriors, not because they didn't play well, but because the team failed to capitalize on their chances and come away with a win in either of their two games against the Swift Current Broncos.

The Warriors played well enough to win in both games on Friday and Saturday, but ended up on the losing end both nights thanks to missed opportunities.

“We played our game, we played well, we gave Swift Current more than they could handle, but it just didn't go our way,” said head coach Tim Hunter after Tuesday's practice at Mosaic Place. “We've got to keep building on our game and the way we want to play and we'll get results.”

The scoring chances came in bunches for the Warriors, but they were constantly turned away by Swift Current goalie Landon Bow, who stopped 69-of-71 shots that the tribe threw on goal in the two games. The majority of the chances came off the rush, which is a good sign as Hunter has been preaching to the team about using their skill while entering the zone.

“We'll find our scoring touch,” Hunter said. “If you get as many scoring chances and as many entries with possession that we had, we'll be fine. We've just got to keep doing that and good things will happen for us.”

The area that the Warriors will be looking to cleanup this week is the defensive zone and the goals that the Broncos were able to score while entering the Moose Jaw zone. Swift Current scored 11 goals in the two games.

“There's a few details where we had a missed assignment, a miss read and the puck ends up in our net because we don't play the situation right, but there's no one guy or two guys or five guys at fault, it's the whole team,” said Hunter. “We'll work on it all together as a group and try to get better from it.”

Coming back into the zone as one group was the focus for the Warriors during practice on Tuesday as they worked in a number of back check drills with the players pushing the pace during the two-hour workout.

“As a whole team, we can all be better defensively,” said 19-year-old defenceman Spenser Jensen. “We all can be a little bit better, that's too many goals, so we've got to clean that up when we're working in practice this week.

“We need to be playing as a six-man unit in the D-zone with the goaltender to defend those chances and we've got work on burring our chances as well.”

Throughout camp, there was a lot of talk off the ice around how the Warriors were going to play offensively and the strides they were making, but not much focus was given to the defence. Hunter said they've been just as focused on preparing the defensive game.

“Offence is important, but if you can't get our of your own end, can't play well in your own end, then you can't go have fun in the other team's end, so you've got to play defence first,” he said. “Just a couple of opportunities that we let slip by in our end and they ended up in our net. With better efforts here and there, we'll be fine.”

Despite the two losses, the Warriors are coming away from the opening weekend encouraged with where they're at heading into another two game weekend in the East Division.

“We had a lot of chances in both games, but we just couldn't really capitalize on them, so that's something that we need to work on as we get ready for Regina on Friday,” said Jensen.

The Warriors host the Pats on Friday night and the Saskatoon Blades come to town on Saturday.

Point Reassigned... One of the three Moose Jaw Warriors away at NHL training camps is on his way back to the Friendly City. Brayden Point was reassigned on Tuesday by the Tampa Bay Lightning and will be back on the ice at Mosaic Place on Wednesday.

Tanner Eberle and Dallas Valentine remain away at their respective camps.

Warriors Notes... Goalie Justin Paulic returned to practice on Tuesday after missing Monday's workout, while 16-year-old forward Noah Gregor was sidelined again on Tuesday for the second straight day... 20-year-old forward Jaimen Yakubowski was sporting non-contact yellow jersey during practice on Tuesday.

WHL Notes... The Calgary Hitmen had a busy Tuesday afternoon as they swung two deals to bring their roster down to three overage players. First, the Hitmen sent forward Mike Winther to Kamloops for two picks and then dealt import Pavel Padakin to the Regina Pats for a 2017 third round pick. Regina released forward Maximilian Kammerer after the move to free up an import spot on their roster.