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After their historic comeback against the Capitals, the Rangers have punched their ticket to the Eastern Conference Final against a very skilled and very deep Tampa Bay Lightning team.  There will be narratives about reuniting with old friends and a lopsided season series, but those will generally be media fluff.  However, there has been legitimate debate about the impact that Tampa Bay goaltender Ben Bishop has had during his first playoff run as a starter.

His numbers so far in this postseason are very good.  However, his stats haven’t exactly lined up with the eye test to this point.  Let’s dig into his game a little bit and figure out exactly what the Rangers are up against.  I actually did a breakdown of Bishop’s style way back in 2012, when he was first breaking into the league with Ottawa.  Much has changed, however.  Since this is our third goalie scouting report so far this postseason (Fleury, Holtby), you know the drill by now: Stance, Crease movement/depth, Equipment, Puck-handling ability and Exploitable Weaknesses.  Here we go…

Stance:

At this point, we all know that Bishop is an absolute tower of a goaltender.  Standing 6ft, 7in and weighing 215lbs, you won’t find many larger netminders out there.  When goaltenders are this large, they face an inherent body control challenge, which is why it usually takes larger goalies longer to fully reach their potential.  Due to this reality, Bishop’s stance and set up are something of a balancing act.

As you can see from the photo, Bishop does a pretty good job of balancing his need to load in a compact manner, while still maximizing his surface area.  Due to very long legs, he has a naturally wide set up, but not awkwardly pronounced like, say, Kari Lehtonen.  He is unable, however, to employ a hulking, size-first stance, as he needs to have his muscles taught and loaded to maintain the body control that is so important to overall movement efficiency.  Visually, though, he takes up a ton of room in the net with a fairly balanced, yet wide, set position.

Crease Movement/Depth:

Due to his size (notice a theme, yet?), Bishop doesn’t have to play all that aggressively to still maximize his blocking area.  Maybe it’s just my own visual bias from watching Hank play from the goal line all these years, but Bishop tends to play a little farther out (living around the top of his crease) than he really needs to.  This leads to slightly decreased mobility, but he is more than able to make up for it in reach.

As far as movement goes, Bishop is not cut from the same mobility cloth as Braden Holtby or Marc-Andre Fleury.  As we will get to in the “Equipment” section, his choice in cowlings does him something of a disservice in this department.  Bishop does not play that smooth-slidin’, efficient mobility game.  For a tender of his size, he moves remarkably well, albeit more in traditional mobility/recovery techniques (shuffles, t-pushes, and the like).

Equipment:

www.goalieguild.com

www.goalieguild.com

Bishop’s equipment is fairly run-of-the-mill.  He wears the same Reebok XLT Pro pads that Fleury employs, mostly for their true-butterfly philosophy.  This set simply maximizes surface area and allows for a blocking style.  His choice in equipment lines up perfectly with the logical goal of taking up as much net as possible.

The interesting wrinkle in Bishop’s equipment comes on his feet.  A few years back, I penned an article discussing major advancements to goalie skates.  You should definitely read that, but if you need to bookmark it for later enjoyment, I have your back.  Long story short, new cowlings (the plastic shell around a goalie skate) have cut down the weight of the skates considerably, while enhancing the “attack” angle, or the angle in which a goalie’s blade can grip the ice to propel you into a butterfly slide.  As we have seen from the mobility of Carey Price, Henrik Lundqvist and Jonathan Quick, these new designs have revolutionized goaltender movement.

Bishop, however, is still wearing the old classic Bauer cowlings.  They differ in design significantly, as their attack angle is much less pronounced, they have completely unnecessary inner foot coverage and weigh significantly more.  This appears to be a direct cause to the lack of upper-echelon movement from the big American.

Puck-Handling Ability:

Bishop is a very competent, albeit aggressive puck-handler.  The immediate comparison might be to fellow big tender, Mike Smith.  However, their puck-handling styles are very different.  Smith likes that Turco-esque, third defenseman thing with his stretch passes.  Bishop, however, is all about distribution.  He likes to get behind the net and dictate the breakout depending on the pattern of the incoming forecheck.

It’s his decision making that becomes suspect sometimes, as he can range too far out to locate pucks, or make ill-timed assessments of beating the forechecker, etc.  While he may have some faults, he is definitely a net-positive in the puck-handling department.

Exploitable Weaknesses:

As mentioned above, the biggest challenge for goaltenders of Bishop’s height is balance and body control.  Bishop has stellar numbers against the Rangers and their north-south same so far this season.  He has very solid angular positioning, so shots in stride off the wing are playing directly into his strengths.  He takes up a lot of net, and closes off holes very quickly (this is what made him look absolutely unbeatable against New York in their earlier meetings).

The key to beating Bishop consistently is to get him moving.  Not necessarily laterally, as his long limbs can still help him get where he needs to go, but just to get him moving and having to re-set to plays and find his angle mid-attack.  Too much puck tracking can throw his balance off, especially if he has to drop into the butterfly while the puck is moving.  He has a tendency is lose balance forward or backward, effectively taking him out of the play, and forcing him into scramble mode.

So, what does that look like from a game plan standpoint for the Rangers?  You have to get pucks to the net.  Rebounds, deflections, lateral passing.  Stretch passes and breakaways are great, but it’s going to take dirty goals to beat Bishop consistently.

Conclusion:

Of the four remaining teams, Bishop is arguably the best remaining goaltender outside of Henrik Lundqvist.  Between his overall skill, size and a very talented team in front of him, solving Bishop will be a tall order.  The Blueshirts need to take his biggest asset away from him and force him to play uncomfortably.  If they are able to do that consistently, their overall advantage in goal becomes that much more pronounced.

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