Don’t pay too much attention to the scoreboard when the Dawson Creek Rage and Grande Prairie Storm meet tonight in the Alberta city and tomorrow evening at the EnCana Events Centre, say both coaches.

The games will be the first pre-season action for both clubs after training camps that opened earlier this month and will be a prime opportunity to gauge who will make the cut and who won’t.

“It is a complete evaluation. It is all about evaluating and very little about what it says on the scoreboard. We won’t be cutting down people’s shift lengths. Our job is to know what each and every player can do,” explained Rage head coach and general manager Scott Robinson, who has whittled the 42 players who showed up for the start of the main camp two weeks ago down to 30.

“We don’t expect a power play that is running on all cylinders or a top-notch penalty kill. But the things we have worked on, we expect the players to show those things and that will give us some indication of who is coachable and who can pick up things.”

It’s much the same story in the Storm’s camp. The Storm have nine members who have pulled on GP team sweaters before and a lot of fresh faces that include some first-year recruits as well as veterans from other teams that Grande Prairie acquired in the off-season.

Storm coach Mike Vandekamp also expects his players to show what they can do when they step on the ice opposite the Rage and, while a win would be nice, that’s not the main focus.

“We are not too concerned about the other team at all at this time of the year,” explained Vandekamp.

“We just want to ice a line-up that will allow us to continue our evaluation process. We still have around 30 players and we will continue to make some decisions moving forward and start to get the basis in place for a little better team game, but it is all about evaluating at this time of year.”

After the Rage open Face-Off Fever 2 with the two games against the Alberta Junior Hockey League’s Storm, they follow that with games against the B.C. Hockey League’s Prince George Spruce Kings (Friday at 7 p.m.) and the Quesnel Millionaires (Saturday at 7 p.m.) at the EnCana Events Centre.

But the difference between the three visiting clubs and the Rage, which will play in the U.S.-based North American Hockey League, is that the local squad is an all rookie team and will be far younger than most of the other clubs in the pre-season or the regular season.

“That is something that we will deal with throughout the season. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t play with them. We like our younger players. A good player is a good player…. It is going to be a great test for us, and out of the teams we are playing in the exhibition series, Grande Prairie will be the strongest one we will see,” said Robinson.

Other Face-Off Fever games include the Storm and Spruce Kings meeting Friday at 3 p.m., and the Storm and Millionaires tangling Saturday at 3 p.m. at the EnCana Events Centre.