Today via the website CapFriendly, we learned that Ben Bishop not only has a modified No Movement Clause (NMC), but a No Trade Clause (NTC) with eight teams on the list.
CONTRACT UPDATE: We have learned that in addition to Ben Bishop’s NMC, his contract also includes a Ltd NTC with an 8 team “No Trade” list. pic.twitter.com/NAnyJJ2JRZ
— CapFriendly (@CapFriendly) February 23, 2017
The last we heard from Bishop was on February 3, where he mentioned to the Tampa Bay Times that he was “open” to being traded if it was necessary. His words to the Tampa Bay Times were:
Obviously we have a great team, a great organization and great place to play. Obviously the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. You want to win where you are. You don’t really think about next year, or anything but the next game. But we’ll see where it takes us. That’s my feeling. But at the same time, I want to play too.
Being open to playing apparently doesn’t mean being open a trade with just any team, however. Bishop will have to waive his NTC if a trade match with one of these teams should happen to interest Steve Yzerman.
One team that we speculate is NOT on Bishop’s NTC is Calgary, since Bishop has told reporters that a trade to the Flames nearly happened at last year’s draft. He mentioned to the Tampa Bay Times:
It looked like for a little bit it was going to happen. At kind of the last minute (the Flames) went out and got [Brian] Elliott. It was close, but there was never … it wasn’t that close, obviously.
Bishop’s current cap hit is $5.95 million through the end of this season. Tampa Bay currently has $59.2 million promised for next season, making re-signing the 30-year-old goaltender for his asking price of (reportedly) $7 million a difficult task, especially with raises due to restricted free agents Tyler Johnson, Ondrej Palat, Andrej Sustr, and Jonathan Drouin. A further mitigating factor is the likely bonus overage from Drouin’s contract that could be applied to next season’s cap.
