At first glance with so many returning players, it may look like there isn’t a lot of spots up for grabs heading into the Moose Jaw Warriors’ training camp this week.

That isn’t the case, however, as General Manager Alan Millar expects there to be a strong push from the Warriors’ crop of younger prospects looking to make the jump into the Western Hockey League.

“We’ve got a lot of good young players, so when you look at the bottom of our lineup – third and fourth line; fifth, sixth and seventh defencemen – there’s going to be guys that are going to be challenging some returning guys for those roles and spots on the team,” said Millar.

There’s 18 players from last year’s team eligible to return this year, many of those players will make up the core of the team, but many will also spend the next four days and the preseason battling to keep their spots on the team.

2016 first round pick Brayden Tracey, as well as fellow forwards Tate Popple, Tyler Smithies and Jakin Smallwood are all expected to push for spots, while on the back end, top prospect Austin Herron, Matthew Benson, Matthew Sanders and Chase Hartje all have shots at cracking the roster.

There’s also camp invite Jaeger White, younger brother of Torrin White, who has 84 games of WHL experience and will be looking to earn a spot on the team.

Millar said they like some of their younger talent, but it will come down to them beating out some of the returning players for spots.

“We’re going to have expectations for this team, we want our players to be all-in in terms of what the goals and expectations are for this team this year,” he said. “Right out of the gate we’re going to work on the process and the process has a lot to do with how we’re going to work, how we’re going to compete and how our own players are going to engage in their own development and how they can best contribute to this hockey club.”

With such a large returning core of high end players, the Warriors are expected to be among the best teams in the Western Hockey League this season.

The players haven’t shied away from those expectations and Millar doesn’t think it will be something that puts any extra pressure on the squad going into the season.

“We can only control what we do with our team and that’s our plan,” said Millar. “We’re going to work day-to-day starting (Thursday) and work week-to-week and month-to-month in building our team, what that process is going to be in terms of how hard we need to work, how hard we need to compete to ensure that we’re on a path that we’re playing our best hockey in February, March, April and May.

“Whatever comes from the outside, that’s just going to be noise to us,” Millar continued. “We expect that we’re going to be in a very competitive division and a very competitive conference. When you look at the Memorial Cup being right down the road, everybody perceives that the entire league is going to be chasing Regina all year and we’re looking forward to that challenge.”

In addition to the battles for roster spots this year and building this year’s squad, training camp is also about the future, especially over the first two days during rookie camp.

The Warriors hosted their top prospects back in June for the team’s annual Prospects Camp, but this week will serve as the first chance for the hockey operations staff to see how their 2017 draft class and listed players match-up with the players that are ready to make the jump into the major junior level.

“They get their feet wet at Prospect Camp, it’s a little bit more laid back and not as intense in terms of the competitiveness and the evaluation process that we have for them, but now they take another step to get to training camp,” said Millar.

“It’s good to get the players that earn their way to main camp in with the more veteran guys and we’re certainly looking forward to seeing how all our young guys have developed and how they do as the camp progress.”

The next four days set the tone for the entire season ahead and Millar said that they’re excited to get things started.

“We enjoy the summer and try to get a break from the rink, but this is what we’re all about in terms of the day-to-day, being in the rink, developing players and building our team,” he said.

The Warriors will have their fitness testing at YaraCentre on Thursday morning and then the rookie camp hits the ice for practices at 2, 3 and 4 p.m. at Mosaic Place. The first scrimmage of camp is at 7 p.m. Thursday.

Rookie camp continues on Friday with scrimmages at 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. after which players will be re-assigned or move onto Main Camp, which begins on Saturday.

The annual Black and White Intersquad Game goes on Sunday at 4 p.m. Admission is by donation to the Canadian Mental Health Association.