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NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: BLACKHAWKS v LIGHTNINGJune 13, 2015Ben BishopJon CooperTAMPA, FLORIDA: Game Five THE MODERATOR: Questions for coach. Q. Do you expect Bishop to be available tonight? COACH COOPER: I don't know. To be honest, I didn't see him since he got off the ice. I'm hoping. I hope I have a decision to make between him and Andrei, that would be great. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach. COACH COOPER: Thank you. THE MODERATOR: Questions for Ben. Q. How do you feel? BEN BISHOP: There's progress being made since the beginning. Yeah, progress being made. Q. Do you feel well enough to play tonight? BEN BISHOP: Yeah, haven't had that conversation with Coop yet. I'll talk to him and we'll make the decision. Q. (No microphone.) BEN BISHOP: It's ours. It's not one person saying one thing. It's a conversation between all of the parties. A decision gets made. I mean, it's not one person saying one thing. But it's a conversation. Q. (No microphone.) BEN BISHOP: There's progress being made. Q. Ben, is there a point in time today where you want to have a decision made or is it possible you could take the warmup and make the decision then? BEN BISHOP: I mean, you never know. I guess you always can make the decision later. But, yeah, I think we'll maybe know before. Obviously, we'll see how it goes. Q. Ben, athletes say they're willing to fight and play through anything, especially this time of year. Where is the line for you where you'll do whatever it takes and how effective you can be? BEN BISHOP: I think that's the line, you just said. You have to do what's best for the team. This time of the year it's all about the team and wins. It's not about personal accolades at all. Q. How difficult would it be to sit out? BEN BISHOP: It's terrible. I was more nervous for that game I'm not playing than for any game. I thought Vasi came in and did a great job. He did everything he needed to do. I thought he played a great game. We had a chance to win that game. It's a tough spot to put a kid in like that. You can see why he's going to be as good as he is. Q. If the game were to start in an hour, you were called to play, would you declare yourself available and ready to play? BEN BISHOP: I'll have that conversation with Coop, we'll talk about it, go from there. Q. That's not answering the question I just asked. BEN BISHOP: We got to talk. I mean, it's not my decision. It's the coach's decision. Q. Can you put yourself in Vasilevskiy's spot, how difficult today might be for him, not knowing till you make your decision? How would that make you feel? BEN BISHOP: You'd obviously be a little bit more prepared now. He's a young kid. But he's been through a lot. He's obviously played some big games, probably none bigger than the last one. He comes with a good résumé. You know, you could see why he's as good as he is. I guess he'd be nervous, right? Anybody would be nervous in that case. I think he did a great job last game. Probably will help him moving forward. Q. When you say 'progress is being made,' hate to play the percentage game, but play it with me. What is it now? BEN BISHOP: I'm not going to share that, sorry. Q. Ben, coach said he expects you to play sometime in this series. Do you feel at this point in time that's going to be the case? BEN BISHOP: I certainly hope so, yeah. Like I said, progress is being made from the beginning. Hopefully it just keeps getting better. Q. Last game when did Vasilevskiy know that he was going in? BEN BISHOP: In the afternoon. We talked about it after the morning skate. It wasn't two seconds before the game or anything like that. Q. Can you give us a timeline of how it works today, when you all need to have that decision made by? BEN BISHOP: Probably will be shortly after this. I haven't talked to coach yet. Q. Ben, yesterday Vasilevskiy identified you as one of his favorite goaltenders. He also said he's learned a lot from you. What have you learned from him over the course of this season? BEN BISHOP: I learned a lot actually. I remember at the beginning of the year coming in and watch him play, playing post play, it's unbelievable. Talking to Frantz, the goalie coach, saying, How does he do that? He doesn't speak the best English. It's gotten better. You can have a full‑on conversation. No problem. His English is really good now. It was fun. I was in that position at one point. To be able to help a younger guy out, it feels good. You can see the bright future he has. He's a good kid. Obviously you saw last game he had to step into a game in the Stanley Cup to play well. Q. You mentioned the line will be how much you want to play versus how effective you will be. What goes into determining that? BEN BISHOP: I think just experience. You kind of know what you can do. I mean, it's really a tough decision this time of the year. Like I said, it's not about one person. When you get this far, you don't want to hurt the team at all. It's been a long season, you got this far, and you don't want to be holding back the team, I guess to say. It's an extremely tough decision to make. We'll talk to coach here in a little bit and make a decision. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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