From The Archive: Big Ben's Big Break

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Big Ben's Big Break - Nov. 21, 2016 - By Ryan Kennedy 

BEFORE BEN BISHOP even arrived in Tampa Bay, he had Frantz Jean’s attention. It was 2013, and the Lightning’s goalie coach was overseeing a struggling platoon of Anders Lindback and Mathieu Garon. For a second straight season, the franchise was heading toward a summer without playoff hockey. Jean needed a game-changer in net, and that’s exactly what GM Steve Yzerman got for him in the 6-foot-7 Bishop, for the mere price of Cory Conacher and a fourth-round pick. Ottawa’s loss was Tampa’s big, big gain. “We needed to find a guy who could steer the ship for us,” Jean said. “I watched him play in the NHL and the minors, and I was really intrigued by his ability to play with his size. I’ve seen big goalies like him struggle, because they try to play like smaller goalies – they’re over-aggressive. Ben is the opposite. He knows how to play big, he likes to be big. And, actually, he’s a pretty technical goalie.”

Bishop, 29, is a mold-breaker, always has been. His size is unique, his hockey roots weren’t typical and his future is completely up in the air. The Lightning surely can’t afford to re-sign him this summer, but they can’t afford to let him go, either. Not without one more crack at the Stanley Cup. And based on the ultra-talented team Yzerman has assembled in Tampa, it’s the best move for all involved. Damn the orthodoxy.

Officially, he is Ben Bishop III. The original Ben Bishop was one of St. Louis’ best tennis players, a twotime U.S. Open participant and, to this day, the goaltender’s grandfather. Ben Bishop Jr. played tennis in college but is better known in the construction industry. He and his wife, Cindy, raised two girls and two boys in St. Louis, the second-youngest (and eldest son) being Ben the Third. “He got into sports when he was very young,” Ben Jr. said. “He was always very co-ordinated and gifted. Whatever sport he played, he played it very well.”

And yes, Ben the Third was always tall. But the spurts were manageable. And unlike many lanky athletes who go through rough adjustment periods, Bishop never lost his coordination for long. Using a philosophy since proven quite effective, the Bishops let their son play multiple sports instead of specializing in one. Along with hockey, there was golf, tennis, swimming, football, soccer and basketball. And in baseball, he played all positions but excelled as a catcher.

When it came to hockey, however, the St. Louis area didn’t have much of a track record producing players, which seems downright strange since no city is hotter right now when it comes to up-and-coming elite talent. Five native sons – Matthew Tkachuk, Clayton Keller, Logan Brown, Luke Kunin and Trent Frederic – were taken in the first round of the 2016 draft, beating out all of Ontario and Quebec combined. Before that, you had Arizona’s Ryan MacInnis in 2014 and the Blues’ own Luke Opilka in 2015. The revolution had been kickstarted by retired Blues such as Keith Tkachuk, Jeff Brown and Al MacInnis staying in the area (you may recognize some overlapping family names in the two groups) and contributing at the grassroots level. When Bishop was 12, he began playing for a Jr. Blues team coached by former NHLers Perry Turnbull and Mike Zuke. It was the first time his potential had been recognized, albeit on a local level. St. Louis just wasn’t known for producing talent. In fact, the only guy who had made it around that time was enforcer Cam Janssen.

Bishop worshipped Blues goalie Curtis Joseph and followed predecessors like Grant Fuhr, Roman Turek and Brent Johnson, but none of them were local. “We played hockey for fun,” Bishop said. “We weren’t trying to make the NHL. As you get a bit older, you think ‘Well, maybe I could play junior,’ then ‘Maybe I could play college,’ but you never thought, ‘I can make the NHL someday.’ I loved going to Blues games, but that wasn’t the goal coming up in St. Louis, because nobody had really done it.”

The first wave was coming, as it turned out. Bishop, Paul Stastny and Chris Butler all played at Chaminade College, a local high school, while also playing AAA hockey in town. All three, plus another local kid in Joe Vitale, were drafted in 2005, but even then the expectations weren’t high. Stastny’s family was hockey royalty, yet he didn’t go until the second round. Heck, Bishop couldn’t even land a job in the United States League the year prior. He was cut by Tri-City and told to try his luck with the lower-tier Texas Tornado of the North American League, located in the Dallas area.

AS YOU GET A BIT OLDER, YOU THINK, ‘WELL, MAYBE I COULD PLAY JUNIOR,’ THEN, ‘MAYBE I COULD PLAY COLLEGE,’ BUT YOU NEVER THOUGHT, ‘I CAN MAKE THE NHL SOMEDAY’

Grant Standbrook had caught Bishop in a couple tournaments and wanted to recruit him to the University of Maine. Standbrook, a legend who helped Garth Snow and Jimmy Howard get to the NHL, loved Bishop’s athleticism, but thought the youngster could get even better. He went to Dallas and told the kid to sign up for gymnastics at a club right next to the Tornado’s rink. “I told him, ‘it will give you a better sense of space and make you more agile,’ ” Standbrook said. “He came back later and said ‘Coach, I can’t do it. It was just me and a room full of little girls there.’ ”

BISHOP’S ROLES

A spectacular string of seasons in Tampa Bay earned the towering netminder a spot on Team USA at the World Cup alongside studs Cory Schneider and Jonathan Quick. It was Bishop’s third time representing the Red, White and Blue.

Standbrook quickly became a mentor. He honed Bishop’s game and pushed him in skating drills: edgework, jumping over the blueline and hopping on one skate. “To have somebody tweak my game and teach me a lot, he set me on the right path,” Bishop said.

With Howard turning pro early, Bishop jumped straight into the starter’s role at 18 and guided the Black Bears to Frozen Four appearances in his first two seasons. Like Howard, he then left school a year early to turn pro. Bishop cherishes his time with the Blues organization, even though he spent most of it in the minors. When Brian Elliott came from Ottawa in 2011-12, Bishop got pushed down the depth chart just as he felt he was on the cusp of a job. The Blues traded him in February 2012 to Ottawa, where he would get his chance. Starter Craig Anderson sliced his hand in a cooking accident, propelling Bishop into the crease. The next season, Anderson was off to a great start when he was run over by the Rangers’ Chris Kreider. Enter Bishop again. “Those two half-years when Craig was hurt, I had opportunities to play six games, seven games in a row,” Bishop said. “We were in a playoff race in March, so there were meaningful games. I had the opportunity to be a starter without the full responsibility of being the starter. When I finally had the chance to be the starter in Tampa, I already had that little practice session in Ottawa. It all came together, all that work throughout the years.”

But a healthy Anderson meant an expendable Bishop. So in April of 2013, Ottawa made one of the worst trades of the past 20 years, sending Bishop to the Bolts for a song.

Jean now had his guy. Though while Standbrook had laid an excellent foundation, there was still work to do. “It was basically to establish a game plan we could follow every day,” Jean said. “It’s speed against speed in this game, so to improve his speed of execution and precision. Where to be versus the context of the play: where should we stand to maximize our coverage?”

Within six months, coach and student had clicked. Bishop became more technically sound, and it didn’t take long before he helped turn the Lightning into a Cup contender.

For all his technical proficiency, however, there’s a fire in Bishop’s eyes when he’s on the ice. Once he’s at the rink on game day, it’s all business. He is serious. He is focused. He doesn’t just want to win – he wants to win consistently. Bishop cites Henrik Lundqvist as a benchmark. ‘Hank’ has hit the 30-win mark in 10 of his 11 NHL seasons (missing only in 2012-13 because of the lockout) and has taken the Rangers to the playoffs in all but one of those years. Brian Boyle, who played with Lundqvist in New York before joining the Lightning, sees parallels between the two. “You’re going to have breakdowns,” Boyle said. “You’re going to need your goalie to bail you out, and both guys do that.”

The difference is Bishop has a potential starter backing him up. Andrei Vasilevskiy, 22, has been thrust into the spotlight the past two post-seasons when Bishop went down to injury – similar to how Bishop’s break came at the expense of Anderson in Ottawa. But the Lightning haven’t traded anyone away, much to their advantage. Bishop has always been there for Vasilevskiy because the older Blues goalies were there for him and, frankly, Bishop says, because that’s how his parents raised him. “I credit ‘Bish’ a lot for sitting down with Andrei and saying, ‘Hey, this guy’s a shooter, this guy’s a passer,’ ” Jean said. “Ben is a very cerebral goaltender. He reads the play at an unbelievable level. If he was a forward and you ranked hockey IQ from one to five, Ben would be a five.”

The big question now is how long will the tandem stay together? Tampa’s high-wire salary cap act is well known, and unless Yzerman can work some more black magic over the summer, there’s no way he can keep Bishop, a pending unrestricted free agent. Victor Hedman and Vasilevskiy have big extensions kicking in next year, while Tyler Johnson, Ondrej Palat and Jonathan Drouin all need raises. You can’t give Bishop less than $6 million (he’s making a shade less than that now), and the only albatross on the books is Ryan Callahan, who has a no-move clause.

There’s also the matter of Las Vegas expansion and how that will impact Tampa’s loaded roster. But the chief concern now is winning that Cup. Tampa Bay has been one of the East’s best teams in recent years, with back-to-back deep playoff runs. The discord surrounding Drouin and Steven Stamkos is gone, and the team is solid at every position. Although it may be tempting to trade Bishop, the Bolts are too close to glory to risk upsetting the balance or strengthening a potential Cup final opponent. Besides, when you ask a hockey player about the future, you’re going to get a hockey player answer. “My only worry is the game tomorrow,” Bishop said. “You’re not getting to the future without the game tomorrow.”