Suffice to say, Mike Bales was surprised when Penguins general manager Jim Rutherford and coach Mike Sullivan pulled him into an office the day after the team's Stanley Cup parade and told him that he was out as the team's goaltending coach.
"I wasn’t expecting that coming off two Cups in a row," Bales explained in a phone interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Saturday night.
But Bales also knows that professional sports can be ruthless, and this was no exception.
Even if his goaltenders did just combine for five shutouts, a 2.19 goals-against average and a .