By Troy Gillard

complete evaluation of hockey ops

Sutter shares what’s next for Rebels after stepping down as head coach

Apr 13, 2021 | 2:25 PM

It’s been a rollercoaster of emotions for Brent Sutter since he stepped down as head coach of the Red Deer Rebels.

Sutter spent several hours contemplating following Friday’s home ice loss to the Lethbridge Hurricanes before deciding the right thing to do to was step away from the bench and focus on his duties as owner, president and general manager, while letting the players hear from a new voice moving forward.

“It’s disappointing. I’m not going to say it’s not. It hurts, that’s all part of it. But I have to do what’s right and I’ve always been this way through playing and as a coach – the front of the jersey is always going to come first… And if there are ways I can help out better in other areas then that’s what I have to do,” Sutter said Monday.

“When you’re the head coach you’re so engaged in it that there’s other things inside the organization that you miss out on,” he noted, “and you’re not really part of in both the hockey operations and the business side. Now this gives me time to focus on the other side of the organization and help it out.”

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Sutter recognizes there’s plenty of work needed to improve his team given its struggles this season and last. A renewed focus on the makeup of the team and what type of players the Rebels are bringing in starts now, he says.

“That’s going to be the process over the next couple of months here, and I want to make sure any coach that we bring in here in the future, we’re not setting him up to fail. Because the coach we’ve had here has gotten a lot out of what you wouldn’t say were top-end teams.”

Sutter downplayed the effect playing during a pandemic has had on his team’s poor performance.

“It’s still no excuse for some players to come in here with bad attitudes when they came in at the start of this, for whatever reason. Did COVID have something to do with that? Perhaps, but I also think there was a bit of entitlement when players found out we’re only going to play 24 games. From an owner’s perspective that’s probably been (the most) disappointing for me. We’ve done everything we possibly could to get our game back, working with the health ministries and provincial governments to get back to playing.

“You’re behind the eight ball right away when you’ve got players coming in thinking the way they were thinking. That took a little bit of time, then we started running into injuries and it just snowballed,” he lamented.

“When you’re missing three or four of your top defencemen, you take your top centre, your captain (Jayden Grubbe) out of your (lineup), you lose Josh Tarzwell who’s played very, very well for us as a 20-year-old. It depletes you pretty quickly and all of the sudden you’re playing your 15-and-16-year-olds in situations they normally wouldn’t play in. This is not a 15-and-16-year-old league to have success in, it’s an 18, 19, 20-year-old league.”

Sutter has made it clear to his coaching staff (Brad Flynn, Ryan Colville and Asst. GM Shaun Sutter) that he wants to all players playing in all situations down the stretch as part of the team’s process.

“When we get to the point where we have a new coach, I want him to feel good about his opportunity to have success and give him every opportunity to succeed with a group we think we can have success with.”

“We need to get more skill, I’d like to add more size. We just need to get guys to be more competitive on a nightly basis and understand what they are as players and accept those roles and understand that it’s a privilege to play here in Red Deer, to play major junior hockey and understand that you’ve got to have good attitudes to be able to play this game and be effective.

When it comes who’ll be the next head coach of the Red Deer Rebels, what is Sutter looking for?

“I’ve been kind of coaching year to year, and the last year or so I started talking to Shaun about it and started making some calls and talking to people. So we’ve had people reach out to us already now that they know I have stepped down as coach – some really good coaches. We’re going to give it time, there’ll be more we talk to and I’m sure there’s going to be a pretty good list of guys.

“I’m looking for a guy that’s a good teacher, a guy that has coached at the professional level. He doesn’t have to have coached at the NHL level, per say, but he’s to have some pro experience one way or another just for the simple fact that when you’re discussing things about what it takes to prepare to get to professional hockey, you know that he’s been there and done it. That’s my wish.

“Can a wildcard come at me from somewhere? Maybe. But we’ll just see. I’m certainly looking for someone younger that can fit in, communicate well with the players and be a major cog in our staff.”