It's the Bishop!

There is a nice article today in the PD about Blues draft pick and St. Louis area native Ben Bishop:

Before coming to Maine, Bishop was mostly a self-taught goalie. He

had never played for a team with a goalie coach. In Maine, he got one of the best, Grant Standbrook. One of Bishop's main attributes has always been his size — "You don't coach 6-7," Standbrook said — but Standbrook and Whitehead saw more than a big guy who could stand in front of the net.

"I think it would be fair to say he was raw," Whitehead said. "The most intriguing thing was his athleticism. He has the ability to move despite his height. The second was his competitiveness. We thought this could be a great guy to work with."

Bishop has been an eager student.

"I called my dad the first week," Bishop said, "and told him there were so many little things I was learning, on wraparounds, or when a guy cuts across the net. You say, 'Oh yeah, that makes sense,' like putting stick on stick on a guy coming across the net. I'm trying to be a sponge and learn as much as I can from Grant. When you have a goalie coach and you do something wrong, there's someone to tell you what you're doing wrong rather than going two months doing it and realizing it isn't the right thing to do."

Now, Standbrook is working on Bishop's skating and agility. In one drill, Standbrook has Bishop face one way in the crease while stopping shots from the other side. The drill forces Bishop to spin around, he says, like "a ballerina."

"When you get to be 6-7 in the sport of hockey,'' Whitehead said, "it's typically a disadvantage. In hockey, you want to have a lower center of gravity. He's turned what's potentially a disadvantage into an advantage. His ability to move in the net is exceptional. That's the challenge for a tall guy on skates. ... In the end, if the guy's just big, he's not going to be that successful."

Bishop was successful last season when he was thrown into the first game after the team's No. 1 goalie, Jimmy Howard, signed a pro contract. Even though he was a 19-year-old freshman, Bishop embraced the chance. By February, he had won the starting job.

It is hard not to root for the area kid to make it to the Blues one day and become a star. That would be great, but the odds are long. Actually, I'm not real sold on the value of all the depth the organization has in goaltenders right now. Goalie prospects have a have of becoming "former" prospects really quickly. Choosing which one of the kids (if any) will be able to establish themselves as an NHL starter is tricky at best. My fear is we will make a hasty evaluation on one of them, trade them for a spare part or two, and look on in horror as that goalie becomes the one to excel in the NHL for the next decade plus.

But maybe that is just the natural "optimism" that comes from being a Blues fan.