With just a handful of games remaining in the 2023-24 season, the Red Deer Rebels and head coach Derrick Walser went their separate part ways.
Sitting in fifth place in the Eastern Conference in early March 2024, Rebels owner and general manager Brent Sutter decided to make the organizational change due to inconsistent play throughout Walser's first year as a head coach in the Western Hockey League.
“The message just wasn’t getting through. I just knew it, I could sense it, and I knew we had to make a change," Sutter said earlier this year.
“I just wasn’t prepared to let the season go to waste. We’ve underachieved… I believe in this group and we’ve got good players in here. We’ve shown that we can be a good team. We’ve got to get back into a different mindset.”
Red Deer brought in David Struch as interim head coach. After recording a 3-4-1 record in just eight regular-season games under Struch, the Rebels went on to beat the Medicine Hat Tigers in Round 1 of the WHL playoffs before being swept by the high-powered Saskatoon Blades in Round 2.
Struch's efforts behind the bench during a short interim stint did not go unnoticed and he was hired as the permanent head coach — the ninth in franchise history.
“Very excited to be a part of the Rebels organization and all those within it,” said Struch in a media release.
“I’m looking forward to contributing to the continued success moving forward, along with the development of our players both on, and more importantly, off the ice as they prepare for their future.”
Sutter said Struch checked off a lot of boxes in what’s important in a head coach.
“I thought the relationship he had with the staff and the way they worked together it just seemed to flow very well,” Sutter said.
“He’s someone who’s experienced in our league as a head coach and someone who wants to be successful at it. You think about his past as a head coach in the league and the tough positions he was in I think it made him a better coach that way.”
Also in the off-season, two Red Deer Rebels players were selected in the 2024 NHL Draft. Centre Ollie Josephson was selected in the fourth round (105th overall) by the Seattle Kraken and goaltender Chase Wutzke was selected by the Minnesota Wild in the fifth round (142nd overall). Josephson, a Victoria B.C. native, was also named captain of the Rebels heading into the 2024-25 WHL season.