It's only pre-season.

That's a reminder Swift Current Broncos fans are trying to give themselves as their local WHL club continued their strong play with a 4-2 win over Prince Albert tonight.

The Broncos are now 5-1-0-1 in the pre-season and have won four straight games.

"I thought we had a good game today," said Broncos forward Kaden Elder. "We played our systems well and we put pucks to the net. Everyone was crashing and banging and we got what we deserved tonight. It was a good game for us."

Elder opened the scoring for Swift Current on a power play that carried them to victory. They went 3 for 5 on the man advantage and are now 9 for 30 during exhibition play.

"I'm seeing a whole bunch of guys moving the puck well," Elder said. "We're finding ice and creating space for each other. When we do that we find open guys."

Swift Current has some new faces like Aleksi Heponiemi and guys like Elder who didn't get a lot of power play time last season making an early impact on special teams. It's partially a result of hard work paying off.

"Just going on early before practices and staying after," Elder said. "We've been working on our power play a lot lately. Finding the open areas, finding each other and working on where we're going to be and not going to be."

Elder opened the scoring finishing off a nice feed by Tyler Steenbergen as he came in back-door. It was his 3rd of the pre-season.

The Raiders answered right back as Swift Current product Tim Vanstone drove the net and pushed a backhand under Travis Child to tie the score. He then dropped the gloves with rookie Broncos defenceman Matthew Stanley and they both hit the showers early.

Steenbergen then scored his 3rd on another power play after a nice feed from Heponiemi. The Raiders answered right back on Loch Morrison's point blast for a 2-2 score after the first period.

Offence was hard to come by throughout the rest of the game. The teams only combined for 35 shots with Swift Current holding a 20-15 edge.

The Broncos pulled away for good on Calvin Spencer's 3rd of the pre-season again on the power play. Heponiemi had his third assist of the night on Spencer's game winner.

Artyom Minulin finished things off with an empty-net goal.

The win has the Broncos tied with Portland for the most points among WHL teams in the pre-sason.

"I think our systems are a really big key to our team," Elder said. "We've been practicing our systems day in and day out in practice and it becomes habbit in games. Our system is really good at shutting guys down, keeping the puck out of our zone and with that turnovers come and opportunities come to put the puck in the net."

New coach Manny Viveiros has been working with his club to implement system changes throughout exhibition. He's seeing some positive progression.

"It's a step by step process," Viveiros said. "We're throwing a lot of information at these young men right now. They're donig a really good job absorbing everything. Like anything they have a lot of questions which are good and we're giving the answers of how we want to play. That's a work in progress. It's going to take us a little bit of time, but I've been very encouraged with how the boys are working."

Nobody has scored more than Swift Current's 30 goals in the pre-season so far. A changing style of play could have some impact on their early success.

"We're going to have to score by committee," Viveiros said. "Also I think it's how we play. We always want to sustain pressure in the offensive zone. When there's loose pucks we want to jump on those pucks... and then we want to take the puck towards the net. Hockey no matter where it's played you have to take the puck to the net to score goals."

With players like Glenn Gawdin, Max Lajoie, Lane Pederson and Colby Sisosns away at NHL camp it wasn't just the usual veterans leading the way for Swift Current.

Heponiemi continues to lead the WHL in pre-season scoring with 3 assists adding to his now 15 point total. Steenbergen's goal and assist moved him up to 7 for the pre-season, while Elder's goal brings him to 5 points on a line that has been clicking the last few games. For Elder it's a nice step forward after a couple of frustrating seasons offensively.

"I think I've just got my confidence back up more," Elder noted. "The last couple of seasons I've been really struggling with that. I came into the season this year with a really positive attitude thinking I'm going to work really hard and hopefully the results will come. So far they've been going my way and hopefully I can take that into the regular season."

Minulin and Spencer also had 2 point nights.

Child made 13 saves to earn the win for the Broncos in goal.

Swift Current wraps up their exhibition schedule on Saturday night in Moose Jaw. You can hear the game live on The Eagle 94.1 FM with Robertson Family Group Broncos Hockey at 6:30pm.

The regular season schedule opens next Friday when Saskatoon visits the Credit Union iPlex.