The Red Deer Rebels will wrap up the preseason this weekend with their final two games against Central Division rivals, the Medicine Hat Tigers and Edmonton Oil Kings.
Even though they're still in the exhibition season the Rebels mindset has officially turned to the regular season.
"It's not preseason for us, this weekend is the start of the season," said head coach Dave Struch. "I think it's important we understand and get in the right mindset for game one of the regular season but for us, the way we've prepared this week was for us to come out and play hard, physical, and be hard to play against."
With just over a week until the home opener on Saturday, Sept. 21 the Rebels still have plenty of roster decisions to make. Their final roster should come out early next week with plenty of new and familiar faces throughout the lineup.
However, it's likely the Rebels will be without some, if not all of their six players to start the season who headed to National Hockey League camps earlier this week. Ollie Josephson (Seattle Kraken), Chase Wutzke (Minnesota Wild), Kasper Pikkarainen (New Jersey Devils), Kalan Lind (Nashville Predators), Hunter Mayo (Winnipeg Jets), and Jace Weir (Tampa Bay Lightning) all attended rookie camps.
However, this has provided opportunities for young talent to showcase their skills throughout the preseason including Cohen Poulin, Noah Milford, Nolan Schmidt, Nickolas Kovich, Beckett Hamilton, Luke Vlooswyk, Jake Missura, Graeme Pickering, Taylor Tabashniuk, and Peyton Shore. Many of them could be on the final roster by next week.
Struch has liked what he's seen so far but will continue to evaluate his players heading into the weekend starting with Medicine Hat on Friday night at the Peavey Mart Centrium. They'll then head to Edmonton on Saturday to face the Oil Kings.
"[Medicine Hat] is a good team. It'll be really good for us because of where they're going to be this year. They've got a top-ranked team and they're going to be highly offensive. They're going to have five, six, and maybe seven top-end scorers," he said.
"They're very well coached and their special teams have always been good the way that team has played for years and years. You can expect them to work hard so we'll be in one against them. We'll have a really good opportunity to see where we are as a team this weekend, especially against a top-end team."
The Rebels have their 20-year-old roster spots taken care of with Weir, Larson, and Mayo set to return in their final WHL season, that is if Weir and Mayo don't get signed by an NHL club.
They've also solidified their import player spots with forward Samuel Drancak returning for his second season in a Rebels uniform and the newcomer Pikkarainen set to make his debut.
Red Deer will also welcome back goaltenders Chase Wutzke and Rhett Stoesser. However, with up-and-coming prospects Taylor Tabashniuk and Peyton Shore on the rise, the Rebels are not ruling out one of them cracking the final roster.
"Well, it's a part of the process right now. With those guys, we'll get another look at them this weekend and those kinds of things will take care of themselves," Struch added.
