Lightning goalie Ben Bishop out 3-4 weeks with lower-body injury

Tampa Bay Lightning goalie Ben Bishop will miss the next 3-4 weeks after he suffered a lower-body injury and Andrei Vasilevskiy will start in his place.

The Tampa Bay Lightning have been stung by the injury bug this season and things got much worse on Tuesday night with Ben Bishop the latest to succumb to an injury.

Tampa All-Star goalie suffered a lower-body injury early against the Detroit Red Wings and had to leave the game. The team provided an injury update on Wednesday afternoon saying Bishop will miss the next three-four weeks as he recovers from the injury.

The Lightning are already without Steven Stamkos who is out until mid-March after undergoing knee surgery and Nikita Kucherov hurting, that’s three of the team’s four or five best players off the ice.

The Christmas break will take up one week of Bishop’s recovery so that is a bit of a silver lining as he won’t miss as many games if it happened at another time on the calendar. Plus, the team is in the capable hands of reserve netminder Andrei Vasilevskiy who made 22 saves on 23 shots after Bishop went down with eight minutes left in the first period.

The former top pick has shown flashes of being a franchise goalie and will get an extended audition to show he can be the guy long-term. He has seven wins in 14 games this year with a .923 save percentage and a 2.41 GAA. He had a rough stretch earlier in the month but his appearance Tuesday could give him the confidence to get back on track.

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Vasilevskiy’s performance could make it easier for the Lightning to consider moving Bishop before the March 1 trade deadline. If he looks like a future All-Star in the crease, the team could move the veteran Bishop to address needs elsewhere on the roster while opening up some much-needed cap space.