When it comes to the playoffs -- and especially the Stanley Cup Final -- teams will go to great lengths to hide injuries, even if it means blatantly lying about the health of a player.
Tampa Bay Lightning coach Jon Cooper was really committed to it when it came to the health of starting goaltender Ben Bishop during Game 3 against the Chicago Blackhawk on Monday night.
Bishop, whose status for the game was not known until just before the drop of the puck, spent the first two periods playing through what was an obvious amount of pain and seemed to be struggling to stand up or move side-to-side without some kind of discomfort. It seemed inevitable that he would be pulled for the second straight game. But through it all, Bishop remained in the game through the first two periods (and started the third period), even after taking a hit to the head from Blackhawks forward Brandon Saad that briefly knocked him to the ice.
When Cooper was asked about Bishop's status by NBC analyst Pierre McGuire midway through the second period, Cooper insisted that his starting goalie was "fine" and then offered a pretty bizarre -- and not very convincing -- explanation for why it seemed to be taking Bishop so long to stand up.
He's just tall.
"Some people are talking about him being slow to get up and down," Cooper told McGuire during a stoppage in play. "But he's six-foot-seven, so it takes him a little bit longer to get up than most guys."
(Here is the entire interview, via Pro Hockey Talk)
That's right. He's just tall. This is what a tall goalie -- not an injured one -- looks like trying to stand up.
Bishop had to leave Game 2 late in the third period on two different occasions with an undisclosed injury. He was replaced by Andrei Vasilevskiy in that game, who stopped all five shots he faced to get the win.
To his credit, Bishop is playing extremely well given his lack of mobility, but it's still amazing to watch the Lightning pretend he's not hurt when everybody watching the game knows that he obviously is. Especially when they have a very capable -- and presumably healthy -- goalie sitting on the bench.