Ben Bishop saw the puck coming, but it was too late.
There wasn’t enough time to get his arms up, and Bishop just had to turn his head and brace for contact.
“I’ve had close calls, but that’s the first time I’ve got hit,” Bishop said. “Thankfully there was nothing seriously wrong or any breaks or anything. It was a kind of scary moment, kind of had to wait to the next day to get some x-rays … thankfully I’m not gonna be out a while here with a wired jaw or anything like that.”
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Backup goalies are supposed to be out of the line of fire. It’s supposed to be a somewhat relaxing night off, depending on how the game goes, free of peril and potential injury.
But sometimes the most important saves happen on the bench, and in Bishop’s case getting hit with the puck on his off night against the Arizona Coyotes on Feb. 1 led to facial swelling and a missed game. Friends he shared a picture with thought he had the mumps.
“The funny thing is we were debating whether I should even sit there,” Bishop said. “I was gonna sit behind the glass, a little bit to the left, and I said, ‘No, I’ll stay here, and sure enough I got hit.'”
Direct hits are a bit of a rarity. Tuuka Rask was hit on the Boston Bruins bench in 2014, but close calls are somewhat common when backing up. Sitting on a cramped bench while wearing goalie gear isn’t exactly conducive to dodging.
“Last game I was on the bench (against the Nashville Predators) I got hit in the chest I didn’t even see it,” Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist told The Athletic. “So it was a half foot away from my face, would have been a different story, so it’s just luck. It happens, it’s a quick game, sometimes when you’re on the bench it’s hard to see because you sit behind guys and they move and then you’re sitting right there (in the way of the puck). Not fun when it happens, that’s for sure.”
The area where the backup goalie sits elevates his risk factor. In most cases, the goalie is sitting just inside the blue line, and when a player goes to dump the puck into the offensive zone, a slight miss could connect with a backup goalie.
“I cover my face every time someone comes close to dump it,” Lundqvist said. “Because you don’t have time to react, it’s better to just cover your face.”
Bishop, like Lundqvist, typically covers his face with his catching glove and blocker before a dump in. But when he was hurt, he was victimized on a blocked shot that deflected off Stars forward Devin Shore and went right into the bench.
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“It was just kind of a weird thing just with the way Shoresy blocked it,” Bishop said. “He kind of blocked it sideways. Usually, you can kind of realize dangerous situations and be ready for it, but that one kind of came out of nowhere.”
That incident led to the first NHL call-up for Landon Bow, who actually had a close call while backing up for the Texas Stars against the San Antonio Rampage right before he found out about the brief promotion.
“A guy on their team (San Antonio) came down from our bench took a shot, it probably went a foot behind my head and (I) thought that would have been a funny coincidence to see it happen twice in the same organization,” Bow said.
During his one-game call-up Bow backed up Kari Lehtonen, who has actually taken precautions to make sure he isn’t the next backup goalie injured on the bench.
For most of his career, Lehtonen was a starter and didn’t think too much about where he sat when backing up. But since the Stars acquired Antti Niemi before the 2015-16 season, then creating a 1A-1B role in Dallas, Lehtonen has opted for the more comfortable seating arrangement.
At American Airlines Center, Stars backup goalies sit near the entrance to the hallway at center ice that goes back to the locker room. It’s harder to watch the game from that vantage point, it requires a lot of staring at the center-hung scoreboard. But it gives Lehtonen more room to stretch his legs and occasionally he’ll take a walk during the game to avoid idleness.
“That was kind of what I created,” Lehtonen told The Athletic. “Goalies used to sit on the bench on the other end there (near the blue line), I just felt like I was stuck there if I needed to stretch a little bit. Stay more ready for the game if needed (in the hallway).”
It also prevents him from getting dinged.
“I’ve learned last couple years what I like to do when I’m sitting on the bench,” Lehtonen said. “I used to sit there too much (on the bench). Now it’s a bit different everywhere, in some rinks you’re even in the coaches’ room watching from the video and still moving around, so every rink is different and hopefully I don’t get hit.”