Tampa Bay Lightning Takes Chance on Ben Bishop trade

Not since the days of Nikolai Khabibulin have the Tampa Bay Lightning had a number one netminder. Instead, they’ve had a mixture of young and inexperienced (Mike Smith, Johan Holmqvist, Anders Lindback), or old and on the way out (Sean Burke, Dwayne Roloson). So of course when it came to trade deadline this year Tampa took a look at their history of poor goaltending choices over the last several years and decided to do the exact same thing in acquiring Ben Bishop.

Ben has been solid this year- there’s no doubt in that- but much like Anders Lindback, who came to the lighting with little NHL experience, Bishop has played very little in the NHL (36 games). To put things in perspective, between Lindback and Bishop the two goaltenders have played 95 games in total which is a mere thirteen games more than one NHL regular season, and together they combine for thirteen minutes in NHL playoff experience. If the lack of experience wasn’t enough, the Lightning gave up top prospect Cory Conacher who is currently second in scoring among rookies.

Ben is indeed a big goalie but he benefited from the luxury of playing for a defensive minded team. Tampa needs to improve their defensive core, and opt for a more defensive minded game if they want any success with Ben minding their net.