Warriors 17-year-old defenceman Reid Zalitach.

Moving ahead and taking advantage of the new opportunities was the feeling around the Moose Jaw Warriors on Tuesday, a day after the trade of defenceman Travis Brown.

“Around the room it's still a positive feeling.  All we can focus on is go out today and work hard,” said fellow defenceman Reid Zalitach.  “We lost a good player, but we have a lot of opportunity and a lot of other players to step up and fill in that role.”

Losing Brown could be looked at as a big blow to the Warriors with him leading the team in points for most of the season and sitting second with nine goals and 38 points at the time of the trade.  Those 38 points account for 42 percent of the offence from the defensive group of the Warriors so far this season, so other players are going to be leaned on to step up their games and help fill that void.

Zalitach, a 17-year-old mobile defenceman, is expected to be one of the players that will be taking on a bigger role in Brown's absence.

“I feel like I've gained enough experience to go out there and play in certain roles,” he said.  “The coaches have trusted me in quite a few roles, like matching me up with top players, and I know that they have a lot of trust in me and I just have to keep that trust.”

Since coming to the Warriors in a trade with the Vancouver Giants, you can see the improvement in Zalitach's game over his 21 games in a Moose Jaw uniform.  He said that improvement comes with him now getting more opportunities to play.

“I feel like every game I play, they start trusting me more and more,” said Zalitach, who credits his defensive partner, overager Jesse Forsberg for helping his game grow. “I feel playing with him and just getting the opportunity to play in certain situations really gives me confidence to go out there and play a solid game.”

Forsberg is another player that has been taking on a larger role since coming to Moose Jaw and that will only continue to grow with Brown out of the equation.  He feels all eight defencemen on the roster will play a role in filling that void.

“I don't think anyone of us is going to fill what he did, we've all got to step up and pitch and do the things that he did well,” said Forsberg.

The one area that Forsberg has already filled in, and really taken control of, is the leadership of the defenceman.  He's a fiery and intense player that pushes the rest of the team to follow that example.

“Ever since I've been in the league, I've always been a leader on the team, and the biggest thing for me has always been just showing by going out there and working hard,” said Forsberg.  “There's lots of guys on our team that are good leaders and they've all been stepping up and it's been really good.”

The Warriors are hoping that Forsberg's leadership, combined with bigger roles for Zalitach and import Alexey Sleptsov, as well as the addition of Spenser Jensen will be enough to fill what Travis Brown left behind.

The tribe will be on the ice over the next couple of days at Mosaic Place and then host the Red Deer Rebels coming up on Friday in a rematch of Sunday's 4-3 win for Moose Jaw in Red Deer.