Ex-Petes assistant coach Walser fired by Red Deer
The Red Deer Rebels fired head coach Derrick Walser with eight regular-season games left in his first season with the Western Hockey League team.
Walser, 45, joined the Rebels last summer after six campaigns as an assistant coach with the Peterborough Petes.
He helped the club to an Ontario Hockey League championship last season. Walser was relieved of his duties following a 7-5 loss at home on Friday to the Swift Current Broncos.
Dave Struch took over as the interim head coach and was behind the bench Saturday when the Rebels edged the Calgary Hitmen, 2-1.
“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,” Rebels owner and general manager Brent Sutter told chl.ca. “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 and sat third in the Central Division at 30-22-2-6.
“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. “I’ve been around the game a long time and you can sense certain things.
“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.”
Walser was in the first year of a two-year contract.