Ben Bishop gets Shipped out West to the Los Angeles Kings
- Mar 3, 2017
- 2 min read
The first big trade happened in the NHL before the March 1st trade deadline, the Tampa Bay Lighting agreed to send their long time goalie Ben Bishop to the Los Angeles Kings for goalie Peter Budaj, defenseman Erik Cernak, a 2017 seventh round pick, and a conditional pick in this years draft.
Jared McCabe's take on the trade: At the end of the year, Ben Bishop was going to become a free agent. The talk coming into the year was if the Lighting were going to trade him or resign him to a contract because the Lighting knew that they had a young goalie for the future in Andre Vasileski. Well tonight they finally made a decision and shocked the NHL by trading him out west to the Kings. You just knew this trade was going to happen, you just didn’t know when and where. I thought it was a surprise that LA would trade for him because they already have a great goaltender in Jonathan Quick. The Kings didn’t give up many players to acquire Bishop and now they have a two headed monster in goalies with Jonathan Quick and now Ben Bishop. I know it's probably a long shot but the Lightning can resign him in the offseason if they chose to go down that path. But in the end, I think the Kings won the trade and the Lightning didn’t get enough in return.
Caden Balints take on the trade: I think that the trade really affected both teams. Lets first talk about Tampa’s side. They sent over their starting goalie and a 5th round pick for a goalie who put the Kings back in a playoff spot, a defensive prospect and a 7th round pick and a conditional pick. Peter Budaj, has 27 wins and 20 losses for the Kings. He has a .917 save percentage, 2.12 goals against on average. Not to mention that Budaj is tied for first for the most shutouts in a season with 7 (Braden also has 7.) Ben Bishop has 16 wins and 12 losses for the Lighting. He has a .911 save percentage, 2.55 goals against average. Along with that he has one shutout this year. I think that this trade made little sense. I mean Quick just returned to the lineup after being out since the first game of the year. Now with Bishop, most people knew that he was gonna go at the expansion draft, but what I think that what Tampa tried to do is they wanted to get something for Bishop, instead of losing him for nothing, Tampa was able to get 2 picks, a great goalie who can help out Vasileski, and a defensive prospect. Who won the trade? I don’t know now, you will have to find out later in the year. I can not wait to see what both LA and Tampa will do, I also can’t wait to see what the goalie situation will be like in LA and Tampa, but I also can’t wait to see the rest of the trades coming into the deadline that ends on March 1st at 3 in the afternoon.
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