Tampa Bay Lightning: A Look Back At The Ben Bishop Trade

Tampa Bay Lightning fans weren’t sure what to make of their young new goaltender, but now we couldn’t imagine the game without Ben Bishop.

It is a perfectly normal thing for a player to be traded to another team during the course of the season. No matter how attached the fans may be to a particular player, hockey is ultimately a business and it is on the General Manager to ensure that he builds the best possible team to achieve their ultimate goal; winning the Stanley Cup.

Since it is Thursday morning and there’s no better time for a throwback, let’s take a little trip back in time to April of 2013 when one of the most interesting (and probably most beneficial) trades in Tampa Bay Lightning history took place; the day when Lightning goaltender Ben Bishop came to Tampa Bay.

The Tampa Bay Lightning was at the very beginning of their current youth movement. Players like Tyler Johnson, Ondrej Palat, and Cory Conacher were just starting to make a name for themselves on the place every young hockey player hopes to find themselves on day, the National Hockey League.

In a season which we weren’t sure if we were ever going to see a hockey game thanks to the NHL Lockout, the Tampa Bay Lightning fans were more invested than ever in what was taking place on the ice.

Lightning rookie Cory Conacher, who had been a part of the Norfolk Admirals team that won the Calder Cup the previous season, had finally played his first game in the National Hockey League. After bringing home 12 goals and 16 assists for the Lightning’s new AHL affiliate, the Syracuse Crunch, Conacher had begun lighting it up here in Tampa Bay.

While Conacher only played in 35 games that season with the Lightning, he was doing well in terms of keeping pace with seasoned veterans like Martin St. Louis, Steven Stamkos, and then-captain Vincent Lecavalier. He collected 9 goals and 15 assists for a total of 24 points, just 8 points behind Lecavalier.

Tampa Bay Lightning fans believed that they may be looking at their star of the future, and then…it happened. The news broke that Tampa Bay Lightning Vice President and General Manager Steve Yzerman had made a trade with the Ottawa Senators that would see the Lightning’s young star spend the remainder of the season in a different jersey.

Yzerman had traded Cory Conacher along with a fourth-round draft pick to the Ottawa Senators in exchange for a largely untested goaltender by the name of Ben Bishop. We would be lying to you if we told you that we were not initially in a state of shock.

While we understand completely that the Tampa Bay Lightning was in desperate need of a change between the pipes as former Lightning goaltender Anders Lindback seemed to be struggling to keep the puck out of the net, how could Yzerman trade away one of the Lightning’s top assets at the time?

The very next season, Ben Bishop showed each and every one of us here in the Bolts Nation why Yzerman’s choice had ultimately been what was best for business.

“Big Ben,” as he would come to be known here in the Bolts Nation, played in 63 games in the 2013-14 season with the Tampa Bay Lightning. In that time, Bishop set a new franchise record for wins in a single season with a 37-14- 7 record.

Bishop would also backstop the Tampa Bay Lightning to real run at the post season since the 2010-11 season when the Tampa Bay Lightning were one game shy of becoming the Eastern Conference Champions and heading to the Stanley Cup Finals.

Unfortunately, an injury sustained around the time of the Olympic Break would come back to haunt him and prevent Bishop from ever taking the ice in the playoffs. Let’s just say that things didn’t end well for the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Fast forward to the 2014-15 season and Ben Bishop is breaking records all over again. Bishop surpassed the record he set the season prior by finishing off the season with a 40-13-5 record. Despite his fair share of difficulties throughout the season, Bishop still finished off with a Goals Allowed Average of 2.32 and a Save Percentage of .916.

Now, the Tampa Bay Lightning found themselves in a very familiar place. The Lightning had earned themselves a berth in the playoffs. The major difference this time around is that Ben Bishop was healthy heading into the post season. What a difference that made!

While the Tampa Bay Lightning may not have achieved their ultimate goal, as the Chicago Blackhawks captured the Stanley Cup, this does not mean that Bishop didn’t have a tremendous showing in the post season.

Ben Bishop went toe-to-toe with some of the best goaltenders in the National Hockey League today and came out on top. Bishop came out on top against goaltenders like Petr Mrazek of the Detroit Red Wings, Carey Price of the Montreal Canadiens, and even “King” Henrik Lundqvist of the New York Rangers.

We don’t know about you, but from where we’re sitting that is a pretty outstanding accomplishment.

As we look forward into the 2015-16 season, we don’t know where we would be without Ben Bishop. The Tampa Bay Lightning has had so many difficulties over the years in the goaltending department that it was starting to feel like we would never come out of it. It’s really nice not to have that overwhelming doubt on our shoulders and a dependable goaltender between the pipes.

When all is said and done, after you consider everything that has transpired over the past couple of seasons, any shade of doubt that we had in our minds have evaporated into the winds of the past and we don’t know what we would do if Yzerman hadn’t made the decision he did.

What are your thoughts on Ben Bishop? Were you initially shocked by the trade? If so, what are your thoughts now? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Next: Tampa Bay Lightning: Who is the Toughest Competition Next Season?

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