The boys are back in town.

After seven games and over 3,700 kilometres on the road, the Moose Jaw Warriors are back at Mosaic Place on Thursday night to host the Prince Albert Raiders for their first home game in just under three weeks.

Coming out of the road trip, the Warriors are happy with where their game is at.

“We obviously started off slow on the road, but we started to find our groove and play better games as we went on,” said forward Jayden Halbgewachs. “Finishing strong was huge and we’ll bring that back home.”

The Warriors posted a 4-3 record on their road trip and enter Thursday night’s showdown with the Raiders having won four of their last five games, including a 9-1 thrashing of the Medicine Hat Tigers last Friday.

The Raiders on the other hand are unbeaten in regulation in their last five games.

Moose Jaw has had a few days to get back into their routine since returning home, which Halbgewachs said was beneficial for the team.

“We haven’t practiced in a while, so getting back at practice and working on some areas that we saw over the road trip is going to be huge,” said Halbgewachs.  “Being back in our own rink is key, that’s where we perform best and we’ll be able to continue building our confidence.”

Warriors rookie defenceman Chase Hartje made his regular season debut to open the road trip in Kootenay and played some key minutes for the Warriors over the course of the seven games.

Hartje said it was nice get into the lineup after missing the start of the season with a lower body injury, “Obviously adjusting to the speed has been difficult,” he said.  “It was nice to get a bunch of games in right away, it was difficult, but definitely good.”

As the Warriors get set to host the Raiders, Hartje said they just need to continue building off the success that they found on the road.  “We just need to play hard and keep going the way that we’ve been going,” he said.

The Warriors swept their season opening weekend home-and-home against the Raiders back in Sept. with the Warriors outscoring the Raiders, 10-3, in the two games.

With 13 games played since then, both teams have improved.  Halbgewachs added that the team has worked hard to clean up the little areas of their game over the past few weeks and will need to continue building off that heading into Thursday night.

“Our defensive game is where we mostly need to clean up and just bearing down on our chances and playing consistently is what we’re focusing on,” he said.

The Warriors and Raiders hit the ice at 7 p.m. on Thursday night.  The Pre-Game Show is on the air at 6:40 p.m. on Country 100 with Voice of the Warriors James Gallo, Derek Kletzel and Marc Smith.

Warriors Stay Put… This week’s CHL Top-10 rankings were released on Wednesday and the Warriors remained in the fourth spot for the second straight week.  The Warriors have a 11-4-0-0 record on the year.  The Swift Current Broncos were the top ranked WHL team, coming in second behind the OHL’s Sarnia Sting.  Victoria was ranked seventh and Portland came in ninth this week.