Rebels’ season a success despite tough ending: Konowalchuk
The Red Deer Rebels’ season ended in disappointment, but it was an overall success in the eyes of head coach Steve Konowalchuk.
For good reason. The Rebels were the best team in the Central Division and despite falling to the Saskatoon Blades in the WHL Eastern Conference semifinal after winning the first three games, they battled through 12 post-season contests.
The Rebels racked up 43 victories from late September to late March, then took out the Calgary Hitmen in five games in the first round of playoffs before losing to the Saskatoon Blades in seven games.
“It was a good season. In the regular season any time you can get that many wins it’s good,” Konowalchuk said Thursday, two days after Red Deer’s season ended with a Game 7 loss in Saskatoon.
“It’s a seven game hockey series that could have gone either way against a very good hockey team,” added the Rebels bench boss. “You get down to the final eight teams in the league, they’re all good teams and sometimes a break, a bounce or a detail that you can tighten up, whatever the case may be (can decide a series).
“Everyone wants to win a championship but only one team gets to do that. Certainly there was a lot of good hockey and a lot of positive things here to build off of.”
The Rebels have been a playoff team each of Konowalchuk’s two seasons at the helm. The club finished second in the Central Division in 2021-22 and participated in 10 playoff games, and was that much better this time around.
“You want to continue to build, it’s important that you’re developing,” said Konowalchuk. “You have to constantly develop at this level.
“You want to keep the culture in place and the value of winning and what it takes to win, and we have a real good, solid group of guys coming back.”
The Rebels will return the vast majority of their team next season, with a few names — defenceman Luke Vlooswyk and forwards Matthew Gard and Jeramiah Roberts come to mind — adding to the mix of veterans.
“There’s a good crop coming in who will fill a few holes and the other guys will be a year older,” said Konowalchuk.
“The culture has always been here and the last couple years we’ve had some real good playoff battles, and that only makes you better.”
All too often, championship-calibre teams have to go through levels of disappointment and Konowalchuk, who guided Seattle to a WHL title in 2017, noted there are benefits to a crushing loss such as the one the Rebels just experienced.
“The experience makes you better,” he said. “There’s a lot of positive coming out of this last playoff round. That’s such a good lesson as to how tight playoff series are, how tight the games are how you need to stick to the regular season details and make sure they are tighter at playoff time when the pressure is on.
“We can take some lessons from it. Our guys battled in the seventh game, playing in front of a sold out crowd didn’t faze them. They battled hard and we could have come out of that game. The whole playoff series just helps you for next year.”
Konowalchuk took great pride in the fact that more than a few players took big strides throughout the season, including netminder Kyle Kelsey.
“Coming from tier 2 last year to playing a ton of games in our league this year, through a few ups and downs, to go to playing in a Game 7 and playing as well as he did . . . the ability is there and that has to give him a ton of confidence to take his game to even another level,” said the coach.
Konowalchuk will spend a few more days in Red Deer before heading off to his off-season home in Seattle.
