Ben Bishop broke out last season with a 2.23 GAA and .924 save percentage in 63 games, but he didn’t get an opportunity to lead the Tampa Bay Lightning in the playoffs because of a late season elbow injury.
After watching his team fall apart in the first round without him, Bishop has spent the summer rehabbing his elbow and his right wrist, which he hurt in January and had surgery on in April.
His elbow is now back to 100 percent, but his wrist is taking longer to heal.
“I started skating in the last couple of weeks and I have a pad under my blocker now just to take away from some of the blow of taking shots off of it,” Bishop told NHL.com. “I was down in Tampa with the trainers and equipment guys to figure out a blocker to work with for the next month. I’m starting to take shots and it’s getting there. It’s not 100 percent yet, but hopefully before the start of the season it’ll be close.
“Just because it hasn’t been messed with over the last three or four months the pounding from the shot still irritates it. Scott Clemmensen had the same wrist injury, same surgeon, and I’ve been in contact with him. He says he feels great now so I’m not worried about it.”
If his wrist isn’t an issue, Bishop will enter the season as the Lightning’s clear starting goaltender. That’s still a relatively new position for him, but it’s one that he hopes to continue to prove he’s worthy of holding. As he previously put it, he doesn’t want to be a “one-hit wonder.”
After signing him to a two-year, $11.9 million extension, the Lightning are certainly also hoping that Bishop’s 2013-14 campaign was just the beginning.
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