June 13--TAMPA, Fla. -- Ben Bishop was the first Lightning goalie off the ice Saturday morning during the team's pregame skate. He was in the "starter's net." His backup, Andrei Vasilevskiy, entered the team's locker room long after most of his teammates were gone.
Usually the above would be telltale signs that Bishop was starting Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final on Saturday night at Amalie Arena against the Blackhawks.
But Bishop's battle with an undisclosed injury, with which he played and won Game 3 but forced him to miss Game 4, has been anything but usual. He took the ice Saturday for the first time since before Game 4 on Wednesday.
"I don't know," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said of who will start. "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."
Bishop said his health or injury or whatever it is has been getting progressively better and that a decision would be made sometime Saturday afternoon with him and the coaches and training staff.
"It's terrible," he said of sitting out a Stanley Cup Final game. "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."
The Blackhawks, for their part, seem wise -- and indifferent -- to whatever the Lightning might be up to as far as gamesmanship.
"We don't expect them to say a day earlier, the morning of a skate, who will be in net," Patrick Kane said early Saturday afternoon before Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final. "And we do some of that, too. It's always part of the process."
Kane said the Blackhawks were fine with finding out during warmups, like most everyone else.
"It doesn't really change too much," he said of who is in goal.
As for Cooper, a former attorney, he never swore he'd tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
But he insists he hasn't lied during the going-on-a-week-long saga involving Bishop.
"OK, so you're -- are you asking if I've lied?" Cooper said after practice Friday when he asked about Steve Kerr admitting he's lied to the press about his starting lineup. "Is my nose growing?
"I'll be truthful in this scenario. This is regarding Ben Bishop or all injuries. I don't know sitting here today if Ben Bishop is playing on Saturday. I hope he plays. I don't know if he's going to. I'm a pretty truthful guy. I kind of call it how it is. I don't feel like I've lied to anybody. I've maybe not, I don't know, said a lot of things, or I've kept them inside."
pskrbina@tribpub.com
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