The single biggest strength of the Boston Bruins roster this past season was their stellar goaltending duo of Jeremy Swayman and Linus Ullmark.
It’s as uncontroversial and universally understood as any factoid about last season’s Bruins team with zero hot take surrounding it in any way, shape or form. The Bruins were third in the NHL with a .915 save percentage one season after winning the Jennings Trophy and led all teams in save percentage (.928) during this current Stanley Cup playoffs as we head into the Stanley Cup Final.
So that makes things all the more interesting that literally everybody in the hockey world thinks Don Sweeney is going to bust all of that up with an Ullmark hockey trade at some point this offseason.
Well, almost everybody aside from the yahoo crew that thinks it's a good idea to trade Swayman who's young and on the rise instead.
Bruins Need to Trade Ullmark or Swayman... pic.twitter.com/yry3CnveVh
— Ryan Beaton (@ry_beaton) May 23, 2024
Interestingly enough, fuel has been added to the fire this week with New Jersey Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald announcing at a Monday press conference that his top-10 first round pick is available and that the Devils are desperately seeking goaltending help. That vaults the Devils up to the top of the Bruins trade rumor list after the whispers had been out there for the last few weeks with an Ullmark/Martin Necas deal as a possiblility between Boston and Carolina after it was discussed last season.
Now the Devils become the flavor of the month for a potential Ullmark deal.
“If we feel it helps us now and in the foreseeable future, then, yes, I’m listening,” said Fitzgerald to NHL.com at the NHL scouting combine in Buffalo on Monday. “I haven’t gotten anything yet, but the more I talk to teams, I say, ‘Listen, I’m open to moving No. 10, but it’s going to have to be something (significant).
“Does the No. 10 pick get you that type of player that you can add to the group. It’s easy to say, ‘Go get so-and-so and then you build from there.’ But there are some guys who have different contracts so how are those players going to reprice at. There’s a lot to it, but, yes, the focus is on finding that goaltender.”
Undoubtedly, a goalie like Ullmark is going to be very attractive to a team like the Devils that allowed 3.43 goals per game last season while missing the playoff cut after an impressive campaign two seasons ago. Vitek Vanecek, Nico Daws and Akira Schmid simply weren’t good enough in Jersey and have been identified as a prime reason behind their disappointing season despite talented players like Jack Hughes, Jesper Bratt, Timo Meier, Dougie Hamilton and Ondrej Palat, who actually played on a line with Pavel Zacha and David Pastrnak on the gold-medal winning Czechia team at the World Championships.
Interestingly enough, Sweeney mentioned a first round pick as a potential return for a goaltender in trade when he was asked about it at the end-of-season Boston Bruins press conference. The common-held belief is that there hasn’t been much trade value generally speaking for goaltenders in recent hockey history, but Sweeney took issue with that notion while referencing the kind of deal that could theoretically get cooked up between the Bruins and Devils for Ullmark.
“I think that goaltenders trade hands, you know, [with the] draft scenario one through nine overall one year. So, it's really what teams needs [are] and what the market will bear, and ultimately it comes down to supply and demand,” said Sweeney. “[It’s about] what a team wants and what you might have, ultimately, that generally shapes the trade market. There isn't a lot of goaltenders in exchange, so it's a small sample size to begin with, but arguably, they change and what other teams need will set the return.”
Certainly, there is past history there as well with Sweeney and Fitzgerald having worked closely together on an Erik Haula/Zacha trade that worked out very well for both sides a couple of years ago.
Ullmark exited the B’s scene last month with the idea that he wanted to remain a member of the Bruins next season, but there are, of course, other factors at play headed into the final year of his four-year contract with the Black and Gold. It’s going to be difficult to convince anybody to sign him to a big, long-term contract if he serves as a backup to Jeremy Swayman this coming season and then takes a seat come playoff-time as he did for nearly the entire Stanley Cup playoff this spring.
So a change of mindset about agreeing to a trade to a place like New Jersey might be a realistic end game scenario for the Ullmark situation with the Bruins.
All of that leads to the foregone conclusion that Swayman is ready to take over the B’s goaltending situation after posting a 2.15 goals against average and .933 save percentage during an outstanding playoff performance. The 25-year-old is going to get paid this offseason like a No. 1 goaltender that will make it very difficult to keep Ullmark around as a backup costing $5 million.
It's also safe to say the Bruins and Swayman won’t be headed for a return engagement to the arbitration table despite him still being an RFA with arbitration rights. Instead, he’ll be looking at a lengthy contract extension that should pay him in the $7-8 million per season range where his shiny new deal should be the biggest priority for the Bruins ahead of the July 1 free agency period where they will be big spenders.
“It’s clearly a priority, and Jeremy knows, I told him. Sometimes those things [like arbitration] happen of course, and it's not an indication of whether or not we didn't believe in Jeremy Swayman or whether or not we don’t think he could have been part of our future, we clearly engaged in conversation during regular season to define the longer term extension, we haven't gotten there yet, [but] it’s a priority now and it will continue to be a priority until we get that across the finish line,” said Sweeney. “He’s a big part of our current team and our record in playoffs and our future. Our goaltending is arguably one of the best tandems in the National Hockey League, and they proved that during the course of the season. They put us in the situation most nights to have an opportunity to win. The priority will be to find a landing spot with Jeremy.”
But they won’t know how big they can spend this summer in free agency until they have cost certainty with Swayman, so expect that negotiation and finalized contract to play out much sooner rather than later.
Sadly, that new contract might signal the end of victorious B’s goalie hugs as we currently know them.
GOALIE HUG 💛 pic.twitter.com/sa1Xcwfh1z
— Bruins Brasil 🇧🇷 (@Bruins_Brasil) November 10, 2023
It feels like the pieces are coming together, however, for a resolution to Boston’s goaltending situation that will work for both netminders but will allow for the Bruins goalies to continue to be arguably the biggest strength of the hockey team.