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Goalie graveyard? With Bishop hurt, Bolts recall Gudlevskis

bishopgetty

James

The day after Ben Bishop left a loss to Toronto with an upper-body injury, the Lightning recalled goalie Kristers Gudlevskis on an emergency basis from AHL Syracuse.

Bishop, who has been injured twice in the past two weeks, made it through the first two periods against Toronto -- allowing only one goal on 22 shots -- before leaving during the second intermission. He was replaced by Cedrick Desjardins, who is only with Tampa Bay because of an ankle injury to back up goalie Anders Lindback.

As mentioned, it’s been a rough go for Bishop of late. He was forced to leave a game against Ottawa last week (the same one Lindback suffered his injury in) after colliding with teammate Nikita Kucherov and, prior to that, missed three games in mid-January with a sprained wrist.

Bishop is currently listed as day-to-day. The Bolts have just one game left until the Olympic break -- Saturday versus Detroit -- and it’s unclear at the moment if Bishop will be healthy enough to play... or if Tampa will head into the Olympics with a one-two goalie punch of Desjardins and Gudlevskis.

Speaking of the Olympics, Gudlevskis is the only one of the four Tampa Bay goalies on his way over to Sochi this weekend, as he’s part of the Latvian team that’ll kick off play on Wednesday against Switzerland.

In another move, Tampa recalled 2011 first-rounder Vlad Namestnikov from Syracuse, to replace injured forward Valtteri Filppula.