Rebels inconsistency, recent woes led to coaching change
Brent Sutter couldn’t wait any longer.
With the playoffs less than a month away, the Rebels owner and general manager saw some troubling signs with his team and as a result chose to part ways with Derrick Walser as head coach following Friday’s 7-5 home ice loss to the Swift Current Broncos.
Dave Struch takes over as the interim head coach and will be behind the bench tonight when the Rebels host the Calgary Hitmen.
“You have to be trending in the right direction in February and March and we just weren’t playing to the level we need to play,” Sutter said Saturday.
“This was a difficult decision but it had to be made to get the team moving in the right direction.”
The Rebels rattled off a nine-game winning streak in January but won just three of 13 games in February.
“The consistency in our game wasn’t where it needed to be. We’d have one good game, one bad game, one good game, one bad game,” said Sutter, who didn’t see any signs that the situation was going to change any time soon.
“I’ve been around the game a long time and you can sense certain things.”
Sutter said the decision was mutual between himself and Walser.
“He understood it for sure. No one is ever happy about something like this, it’s a hard thing to do. Derrick is an awesome guy but at the end of the day it just wasn’t the right fit.
“The decision had to be made to get the team going in the right direction. There are certain elements a team needs to have . . . competing, passion, energy and emotion. Those have to be a big part of your team, your number one identity. We just lost that along the way this year.
“The message has to be delivered differently now.”
Struch was enroute from Saskatchewan today.
A native of Flin Flon, Man., he served as director of hockey at Notre Dame College in Wilcox, Sask, this season.
Struch, 53, played four seasons with the Saskatoon Blades in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s then embarked on a 14-year professional career.
His coaching resume includes five years as head coach with the Blades and the Regina Pats and 12 years as an assistant coach with Saskatoon, Regina and the Everett Silvertips.
Walser was in the first year of a two-year contract he signed last July.
