Bishop Becomes a King

Ian Gooding

2017-02-26

In a surprise Sunday deal, Ben Bishop is now a Los Angeles King.

The trade: The Tampa Bay Lightning have traded goalie Ben Bishop and a fifth-round pick in the 2017 draft to the Los Angeles Kings for goalie Peter Budaj, defenseman Erik Cernak, a seventh-round pick in the 2017 draft, and a conditional pick in the 2017 draft.

The Kings get: A potential backup (or 1A goalie) as insurance for Jonathan Quick, who returned Saturday after missing nearly the entire season with a groin injury. The Kings will also need to expose either Bishop or Quick in the expansion draft (likely Bishop). The Lightning also retain 20 percent of UFA-to-be Bishop’s remaining salary.

The Lightning get: A backup goalie that has exceeded expectations filling in for Quick while injured. This trade officially cements Andrei Vasilevskiy as the Lightning’s starting goalie. Cernak was the Kings’ second-round pick (43rd overall) in the 2015 draft and is currently playing for the Erie Otters of the OHL.

This is a deal that is a bit of a head-scratcher, but it is a complex one with many layers to it: performance, injury insurance, standings position, playoff run, salary cap, and expansion draft.

The Kings now (at least on paper) boast one of the strongest 1-2 goalie tandems in the league in Quick and Bishop. It will be interesting to see how the goaltending work is divided up. But assuming that Bishop is not being flipped in another deal by Wednesday, this trade helps neither Quick nor Bishop. The Kings should have very strong goaltending at the very least as they attempt to improve on their 9th-place position in the Western Conference.

The Kings were likely not going to start Quick 80 percent of the time before this deal was made, but this could turn out to be a flat-out goaltending timeshare. Quick still should have the upper hand based on the equity he has built as the Kings’ starting goalie, but Bishop is a clear upgrade from Budaj as long as you throw away this season’s numbers.

No matter how you slice it, Vasilevskiy was the goaltender of the future for the Lightning. And with the Bolts now seven points out of the final wild card, the future appears to be now. The cap-strapped Bolts weren’t going to be able to sign Bishop with all the other young players ready for big paydays. The problem is that Vasilevskiy (2.81 GAA, .909 SV%) hasn’t quite appeared ready to seize the job on his own.

After starting the season in the AHL, Budaj has actually been one of the league’s better goalies this season, as he is currently tied for the NHL lead in shutouts (7). Although Vasilevskiy is clearly the Tampa goalie to own in keeper leagues, don’t be surprised if Budaj is the Bolts’ goalie to own for the rest of the season. But this will probably be a situation in which Jon Cooper plays the hot hand.

If you own a Kings or Lightning goalie, we would recommend that you check Goalie Post regularly for starting goalie updates.

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Players this helps, in order:

Andrei Vasilevskiy

Peter Budaj

Players this hurts, in order:

Jonathan Quick

Ben Bishop

Fantasy owners are discussing this trade now. Give your take here

3 Comments

  1. Big Ulf 2017-02-26 at 20:01

    wild. Thanks, Peter, here’s a ticket to Tampa.

    • Cal Growette 2017-02-26 at 21:02

      No kidding. As they say, it’s a business…

  2. BeauRyker 2017-02-26 at 21:30

    I can see LA flipping Bishop to a team for a backup and some offense. They need offense badly.

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