Stars announce that Ben Bishop’s NHL career is over

Tough news from the Dallas Stars on Saturday: Ben Bishop‘s career appears to be over. After a lengthy bid to rehab a knee injury, including a brief stint in the AHL, it sounds like that issue forced Bishop to retire.

“It’s a huge loss for us and a tough day for Ben, a tough few days,” Stars GM Jim Nill said, via NHL.com. “Really, it’s been tough for him for more than a year, trying to rehab this. He’s felt good, he’s felt bad, but always hoping it would come back. But in the end, this is the way it goes.”

With that, Bishop’s contract will remain in LTIR (his $4.9167M cap hit [$3.5M total salary each season] runs through 2022-23).

Stars announce that knee injury forces Ben Bishop to retire

Jim Nill notes that, “after one game, (Bishop) could tell” that he wouldn’t be able to play because of those knee issues.

Back in October 2020, Ben Bishop underwent surgery for a torn MCL in his right knee. Since then, Bishop’s made multiple comeback bids with the Stars, but he clearly wasn’t able to overcome those injuries.

In the end, you can summarize Ben Bishop’s NHL career with two recurring themes: 1) strong, sometimes underrated goaltending and 2) injuries. Perhaps one of the things that made Bishop stand out (his size, listed at 6-foot-7) also made it more difficult for him to shake off injuries. Unfortunately, lower-body injuries have plagued Bishop for much of his stellar career.

It seemed like the Stars were holding out hope for Ben Bishop to eventually return, although it was telling that they added Braden Holtby to a mix that already included Anton Khudobin and Jake Oettinger.

“It hurts,” Stars head coach Rick Bowness said, via the Dallas Morning News. “I feel terrible for him because he’s such a great person and as I’ve always said, when he’s on, he’s a top three goalie in the league. He took us to the Finals in Tampa. When you go that far, you have a special bond.

“I’ve always felt very close with Bish. I’m devastated…