Every coach will tell you that injuries can be an opportunity.

The Swift Current Broncos are hoping their recent rash of injuries opens the door for players on their roster to learn from playing bigger roles in a way that will strengthen the team by the time they get healthy again.

"You can't replace experience," said Broncos Head Coach and Director of Player Personnel Manny Viveiros. "These kids are getting live minutes in those situations for us. Especially young guys you live with their mistakes but you learn from those mistakes. The next time they're put in those situations they're going to respond in a different way."

"Every good team has to overcome adversity... it's going to make us a better team."

One of the players who has relished some additional responsibility is 19-year-old sophomore Brandan Arnold.

"I love it," Arnold said. "It just shows the coaches can trust me and I can be a leader at different levels of the game."

Arnold has had a chance to play bigger minutes at even strength and get some time on the penalty kill as well. He wants to prove he can earn those minutes even as the team gets healthy.

"I think I still have a lot to show and improve," Arnold said. "I think this is just a start for me and I think I can do a lot more."

While the depth of the Swift Current lineup has been contributing some solid minutes most of the scoring has been coming from the line of Lane Pederson, Tyler Steenbergen and Aleksi Heponiemi. The Broncos will need some secondary scoring while waiting for players like Glenn Gawdin, Arthur Miller, Calvin Spencer and Riley Stotts to return from injury. Viveiros believes it's starting to come.

"They're getting chances," Viveiros said. "It's a matter of bearing down on those opportunities. A lot of time it's repetition in practice which is something we stress every day shooting to score. Also to produce goals you've got to put pucks and people towards the net. It's not necessarily the guy in front of the net screening the goaltender it could be the guy around the crease who can bang in the rebound."

For Arnold it's a matter of sticking to defence first and creating offence through hard work.

"We just play a simple game," Arnold said. "The d-zone is always first with our team. I think we can chip in the offence but we have to play a simple game first. Chip pucks deep and battle our butts off for it."

Swift Current did get a boost on Tuesday with the return of Conner Chaulk after he missed six games with an upper body injury.

"It's huge in our game," Viveiros said. "A great face-off guy. The way he got injured he put himself in front of a flying object that is coming pretty fast so a credit to the character of the young man and how tough he is. He brings so many things that don't always show up on the score sheet but helps with wins and losses. He's been a real nice pleasant surprise for us and we're ecstatic to have him back."

Chaulk's line with Cole Johnson and Tyler Adams was that needed secondary scoring in a 3-2 win over Red Deer as Johnson scored once and hit a crossbar on another occasion.

The Broncos will need everyone going in a battle for second place tonight against the Moose Jaw Warriors.

Swift Current enters the game a point back of the Warriors for second spot in the WHL East Division at 11-6-2-3. Moose Jaw is 12-4-4 with points in 8 of their last 10 games.

The Warriors bolstered their lineup recently adding former Lethbridge Hurricanes leading scorer Brayden Burke in a trade for Ryan Bowen and a second round bantam draft pick. He was the third leading point producer in the WHL last season and led the league in assists with 82.

Swift Current enters action tonight with Heponiemi second among rookie scorers, Artyom Minulin fifth among defencemen and Steenbergen sixth among goal scorers.

You can hear tonight's game on The Eagle 94.1 FM with Robertson Family Group Broncos Hockey at 6:30pm. Puck drop is just after 7pm at the Credit Union iPlex.