Wednesday was a good news, bad news day for the Tampa Bay Lightning.
On the good news front, the MRI on starting goalie Ben Bishop’s left wrist/arm revealed no structural damage.
On the bad news front, the club doesn’t appear to know just how severe the injury is -- but knows it’s serious enough to sideline Bishop for the remainder of the regular season. Head coach Jon Cooper confirmed the team will be shutting Bishop down and, in a related move, the Bolts called up Kristers Gudlevskis from AHL Syracuse today to serve as a backup to Anders Lindback.
To get a sense of where the Lightning are with the injury, a few tweets:Cooper did not rule out Bishop being available for the first round of the playoffs “at some point.” He said the next 5 or 6 days will tell.
— Damian Cristodero (@LightningTimes) April 9, 2014
Cooper was very, very cautious in describing where Bishop is at. Doesn’t sound as if the Lightning really knows when he might be available.
— Damian Cristodero (@LightningTimes) April 9, 2014
Ben Bishop not ruled out for start of playoffs, will not play in final 3 games, then assessed next week to see where he’s at
— Erik Erlendsson (@erlendssonTBO) April 9, 2014
Losing Bishop for any length of time would be devastating for the Bolts, who still have something to play for down the stretch -- home-ice advantage in their first-round matchup with Montreal.
The NHL’s tallest netminder has had a Vezina-calibre season and, unlike the Steve Stamkos injury, Tampa Bay won’t be able to rely on a cast of capable, quality depth players to keep the team afloat -- Lindback has been very average since coming over from Nashville two seasons ago and is 6-12-2 on the year with a 3.11 GAA and .884 save percentage.
Also, the sum total of his career playoff experience is -- wait for it -- thirteen minutes.
