Excerpts of Stampeders general manager and head coach John Hufnagel’s comments to media after Saturday’s walkthrough.

On the goals for his offence in the opener.

No. 1, as in any game, you want to try and get first downs. Hopefully you can accomplish that early with your running game so you can stick with your running game all game long. Obviously, your short passing game has to be a big part of the offence but you also need to be able to get chunks, to take your shots downfield. If you have the flow of the game where you are connecting on the short game and you’re able to run the football and you can get into very manageable second-down situations, that’s a big part of having success.

On finally being able to get the regular season going after a long training camp and eight days since the Stamps’ final pre-season game.

Oh yeah, they’re excited about playing the first regular-season game, especially after watching a couple of regular-season games last night. It has been a long training camp for every team and we’re playing a very, very good football team in Montreal. Usually, the two teams have very good games against each other. Most games have been decided late in the fourth quarter and I expect that type of game tomorrow.

On the current state of the Stampeders offence.

I think we have to grow as an offensive football team — just to see what is our identity, what are we good at, what do we need to get better. It’s a long season but I enjoy the improvement we made throughout training camp. On the flip side of the coin, we have a lot more improvement to make. I have confidence in our quarterbacks. The team has confidence in our quarterbacks. As long as they do their job — get the ball to the playmakers, make good decisions, play hard — we’ll be fine.