Ben Bishop Signs for 2 Years

The Tampa Bay Lightning re-signed goaltender Ben Bishop to a 2-year contract on Saturday, with an AAV of $5.95 million, starting in 2015-2016. Bishop was 4th in the league in wins last season with 37 (37-14-7). The Lightning were swept in the first round of the playoffs at the hands of the Montreal Canadiens, due in part to Bishop sustaining an injury late in the season against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Let's break down the deal a little more. First off, Bishop has only played in 108 career games (55-31-11), has never suited up in an NHL playoff game, and has only been a starting goaltender for 1 season.. To put that into perspective, Kari Lehtonen, who has a slightly lower cap hit ($5.9 million) has 445 career NHL games (but only 8 playoff games), Ryan Miller, who will have a slightly bigger cap hit with the Canucks ($6 million) has 559 career NHL games and 53 career playoff games, Corey Crawford, who has the same cap hit as Miller, has 211 career games, 56 career playoff games, and a Stanley Cup.

So let's look at goalies who have played about the same number of games as Bishop. Let's look at all active goalies who have between 100 and 150 games played. This leaves 8 goaltenders: Braden Holtby (105 GP), Bishop (108 GP), Jonathan Bernier (117 GP), Joey MacDonald (133 GP), Michal Neuvirth (136 GP), James Reimer (140 GP), Jonas Gustavsson (141 GP), and Cory Schneider (143 GP). Their AAVs look like this:

Holtby: $1.85 million
Bishop: $5.95 million
Bernier: $2.9 million
MacDonald: $600,000
Neuvirth: $2.5 million
Reimer: $2.3 million
Gustavsson: $1.85 million
Schneider:$4 million

As you can see, Bishop has the biggest cap hit by far, almost $2 million more than 2nd place Cory Schneider and more than the Leafs goaltending tandem (Bernier and Reimer) combined..

We have seen teams get burned signing goalies to large deals before (Rick DiPietro, Cam Ward, Roberto Luongo). What the Bolts do have working in their favour is the fact that it's only a two-year deal, which will soften the blow should Bishop not live up to expectations.

The Lightning have one more season of Bishop at a $2.3 million cap hit, and in his 1st season as a starting goaltender, he has certainly proved that he can hold his own. However his sample size is too small to warrant the large cap hit. The short term helps stop this contract from being awful, however, I find it hard to see a scenario where this cap hit can be considered warranted.