The Moose Jaw Warriors, like Tanner Jeannot, have been enjoying a season like they’ve never had before.
Tuesday night, the team won their 52nd Western Hockey League regular season game in a 2-1 shootout win over the Prince Albert Raiders and by doing so, clinched the Scotty Munro Memorial Trophy as the team with the top regular season record for the first time in franchise history.
“It’s been really fun this year,” said Jeannot, the 20-year-old Oxbow product who played minor hockey in Estevan growing up. “Winning’s really fun and we’ve got a really special team. It’s been going pretty good for us. We’ve just got to keep it going into playoffs now.”
Jeannot has set career highs in goals (37), assists (40) and points (77) going into his final regular season weekend of hockey.
“Being 20, you’ve kind of got to lead by example and lead the way a little bit,” he said. “Lots of credit goes out to my line-mates too. You can’t do anything by yourself out there. They’ve really been helping me out and I’m just trying to play my game.”
His hard-nosed style of play has led to big hits but he hasn’t missed any games due to injury in three seasons.
“I’m a skill guy but I work hard and crash and bang and get pucks to the net,” he said. “That’s where I’m going to score my goals, I’ve been working on that every year and getting better and it’s showing on the scoresheet.”
At the start of the year, he was on a line with Brayden Burke (113 points so far) and Justin Almeida (96 points), but has since been shifted over to a line with Jayden Halbgewachs (125 points) and Brett Howden, a Tampa Bay Lightning signed player who won silver with Team Canada at the World Junior Hockey Championships and has 69 points in 47 games.
“It’s a great and special opportunity,” he said. “Every year you try and get better and better in the offseason and just watching guys, playing with Dryden Hunt and Brayden Point and watching what they do. You just try to watch and learn to add stuff to your game so that you can get better and … playing with the talent I’m playing with, like Halbgewachs, Howden, Burke, all those guys are really skill guys. You’ve got to play to your strengths so you can compliment each other. My strengths are winning battles and getting pucks into their hands.”
Perhaps the best number Jeannot has had this year is the +47 in plus-minus, tied for fifth in the league and second on the team behind defenceman Josh Brook at +48.
“Every night our coaches lay out a plan that we want to fight towards and stick to,” said Jeannot. “That’s a big part of it. We always want to be tracking back through the middle into our (own zone) hard, denying cross ice passes and making it easy on our defence and our goalie.”
En route to the Scotty Munro trophy, named after a former Estevan Bruins coaching legend, the Warriors beat the Swift Current Broncos, second in the league and second in the division, 4-2 at home in a hard-fought, hard-hitting game. The teams have something of a rivalry this season in no small part to the fact the Broncos beat the Warriors last year in the first round of the playoffs.
“The atmosphere here in the rink was awesome and the crowd was right in it,” said Jeannot. “It was war out there. I was on the ice and every play had to be hard. You knew you were going to get hit and they knew they were going to get hit. Definitely one of the most fun games I’ve ever played in. What we always say is we’ve got to do what it takes to win each and every game. I felt like we did that that night.”
And if there are no upsets in the first round of the playoffs, the Warriors will end up greeting the Broncos in the second round.
“We don’t want to look too far ahead,” he said. “We’ve got to focus on what’s ahead here first but if that was to come it would be a really good rivalry, especially with the caliber of the teams involved.”
Jeannot was also aware the Power Dodge Estevan Bruins were getting set to play in the playoffs this weekend, with former minor hockey teammates like Kaelan Holt and Tyler Hengen helping lead the Bruins to a pair of late regular season wins over Melville.
“Whenever you see them around, you’re always talking about stories from the past and minor hockey,” said Jeannot. “I’m always following along with the Bruins and Estevan Minor Hockey, coming out of there… It’ll be an exciting time for them going into playoffs here and I wish them all the best.”
