Jeremy Swayman & Dan Vladar are keeping the Bruins afloat - just as we all expected

We've all seen this narrative play out before, right?

In a contest where the Bruins spent significant stretches either hemmed in their own end or chasing the puck, it was the play of their key cogs up front in Patrice Bergeron (his sixth career hat trick) and Brad Marchand (his second 4-point night in three games) that served as the difference-makers — snatching two points from the jaws of defeat and lifting the Original Six club to a much-needed 4-2 win over the Flyers.

Such a result has been par for the course over the years for a top-heavy Bruins roster — who would have likely found themselves just a point ahead of Philly for the fourth and final playoff spot in the East Division if it wasn't for the play of their top-line pivot and left wing.

Oh — and their 22-year-old netminder in the midst of his NHL debut.

*Record scratch*

Well ... hang on there — that's not exactly sticking to the script.

But then again, very little has gone according to plan for the Bruins in 2021, who, instead of sitting pretty atop the East standings, are trying to tread water and get healthy during a frantic sprint to the finish line of this 56-game regular season.

And while these twists and turns (or perhaps setbacks is the most apt term to describe a season full of injuries and COVID snafus) have regularly taxed Bruce Cassidy and the B's during this compressed, unique season, that uncertainty has also yielded its fair share of pleasant surprises  — none more so than the play of both Jeremy Swayman and Dan Vladar, who have gone from AHL regulars and rising stars in the club's prospect pipeline to the two men keeping this promising campaign from crumbling into ruin — all in the span of just a couple days.

Just as we all expected, right?



It's hardly the situation that Cassidy and the Original Six franchise wanted to be in during Tuesday's rematch with the Flyers — forced to hand the keys to the B's net over to a kid who, exactly 13 months ago, was still turning aside salvos of shots in front of a packed Alfond Arena up in Orono, Maine.

Getting peppered in net is rarely a welcome scenario for anyone between the pipes, but it was the norm for Swayman during his final season with the Black Bears — as Maine relinquished 34.6 shots against per game, ranking 56th out of the 60 D-1 teams in the country.

So, as deeply troubling as the optics were of the Bruins leaving their young goalie out to dry in a second period where the Flyers managed to land an absurd 25 shots on goal, Swayman felt right at home under such high heat — even with the obvious butterflies that come with one's NHL debut.

"That's a great experience being up in Maine and those games where I was getting peppered — there was still so much team effort involved and guys were doing their jobs, keeping shots wide and clearing rebounds," Swayman, who spent most of the game with a smile etched through his mask, said. "So it really it goes to show that this game is a team game and not an individual effort whatsoever. ...  It's a game and it's a game that I love. And I enjoyed every second of it. That's what a lot of the vets told me to go into, especially Tuuks — just said 'Enjoy it. It's once in a lifetime.' That's exactly what I did. I absolutely love this game. And to do it at the biggest stage, the best players in the world, how can you not have fun doing that?"

https://twitter.com/ConorRyan_93/status/1379577830623866881

Cassidy likely didn't share the sentiment as far as how much fun he relished watching the contest play out from the bench — given both his team's effort in the second period and just how much this roster needed to rely on a rookie thrust into a tough spot just to gut out two points against a foe they needed to dispatch.

Even with both Bergeron and Marchand shredding through Philly's defense like a a cut of ribeye at Tony Luke's, that offensive showcase likely would have amounted to nothing more than stat padding had it not been for Swayman's 40-save effort down the other end of the sheet.

"Yeah he's pretty relaxed," Cassidy said of both Swayman and the team's response in the third. "Competitive guy, obviously. What I've been told, he was used to some of those nights at Maine but that's atypical of our team. Thought we did a nice job in the third obviously in front of him. He deserved much better support than we gave him.

"He eventually got it in third. ... It's about this young guy going in, playing his first NHL game — basically standing on his head to keep us in the game and the guys that have NHL talent need to provide NHL effort with that talent in the checking game and managing pucks guys that aren't quite at the same level of NHL talent —  they have to work on their NHL execution and make good reads and decisions. So we ask for a little more of both from each category that player falls into and I thought we got it. ... Shortened the bench a little for the guys that were willing to check and manage pucks and play the right way to help our goaltender and worked out for us."

For all of the warts and worries currently festered on the B's — be it the lack of sustained offensive production, miscues among young blueliners, injuries, a transition game mired in muck with Charlie McAvoy sidelined and the uncertain status of both Tuukka Rask and Jaroslav Halak — it's truly shocking that one thing that Cassidy hasn't had to worry about is whether or not a pair of young goalies in Vladar (2-1-1, .922 save percentage) and Swayman (1-0-0, .952 save percentage) are going to be able to keep the Bruins in the fight during this trying stretch.

"I think it's great to see," Bergeron said of Boston's potential goaltending tandem of the future. "It's one of those position, I think it's needless to say is probably the most important position in hockey. And we've been fortunate in my time here with some amazing goalies, and it seems like the future is bright. So it's always a great sign."

Did any of us expect that the Bruins were going to need both Vladar AND Swayman to stand on their heads down the stretch to keep this team off the ropes? Certainly not. If you say you called it out of training camp — you're fibbing. 

But after years of the Bruins following the same ol' script when it comes to storming their way through the regular season, there is something to be said of nights like Tuesday in Philadelphia — in which a 22-year-old rookie from Anchorage did his part to help the prevent B's season from splitting apart at the seams.

A surprise? No doubt. But a welcome one, at that.

https://twitter.com/ConorRyan_93/status/1379612238575718401

"Every one of those guys came up to me after and congratulated me," Swayman said of getting mobbed after the win. "And that just goes to show what kind of an organization we have. At the end of the day, my job is to stop pucks. And that's what I wanted to do for the team in order to give them a chance to win. And so I know if I do my job, they're going to do theirs. And that's exactly what happened tonight."