Reports have circulated today that Ralph Krueger may have landed on his first hire of his coaching staff. After resigning from the Carolina Hurricanes today, Mike Bales, appears to be headed to the Sabres staff.
Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet indicates that Bales was on the Sabres radar after news broke of his resignation. Joe Yerdon of The Athletic tweeted that sources told him Bales will indeed be joining the new coaching staff in Buffalo.
With this out News there, sources tell me that Mike Bales will be the new goalie coach in Buffalo. https://t.co/Q59KWuRFeC
— Joe Yerdon (@JoeYerdon) June 12, 2019
Bales was the goaltending coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins from 2013 to 2017. He worked with Matt Murray and Marc-Andre Fleury during the Penguins Stanley Cup runs.
Also, Jason Botterill would be familiar with him from their time together in Pittsburgh.
The last two years he’s been on the Hurricanes staff as their goaltending coach. He did a great job with Petr Mrazek and Curtis McElhinney this past season. The two goaltenders had nice campaigns and backstopped the Canes to the Eastern Conference Finals.
As the tweet above indicated, it appears Chris Hajt, Davis Payne, and Andrew Allen will not return next season. Krueger stated during his introductory press conference a few weeks ago he wanted his new staff to ideally be in place by the end of June.