It’s difficult to put real fault on either side in the Jeremy Swayman contract negotiations with the Boston Bruins.
That’s what makes it all pretty challenging in terms of finding common ground between two sides that are still canyons apart in negotiations at this point in time. The temperature on the whole situation goes up this week as Swayman could start beginning to miss real-time with on-ice work at training camp just days away. After being a little more willing to comment over the summer, the Bruins seem to have collectively put a clamp on addressing the contract stuff publicly with both Jim Montgomery and captain Brad Marchand taking a pass on commenting about the negotiations.
"I'm not getting into the contract situation,” said Montgomery, when asked at the Boston Bruins Foundation golf tournament if he was still optimistic that Swayman would be signed and in training camp this week. “It's not my area of expertise. It's Donnie [Sweeney's].”
From the B’s perspective, they believe that Swayman isn’t on firm ground to be asking for top dollar in terms of goaltender pay, in other words Andrei Vasilevskiy money in the $9.5 million AAV neighborhood, because he’s simply not there yet in a stellar career trajectory that sees him on the verge of NHL stardom.
Swayman has never played more than 44 games in a season, has never shouldered the full brunt of a No. 1 goalie workload without sharing it with a Vezina Trophy caliber goalie partner and hasn’t garnered the kind of Vezina/All-League accolades that other NHL goalies have earned before signing those kinds of big money contracts. It’s something that Cam Neely alluded to in an interview with WZLX over the summer when discussing the expectations surrounding Swayman headed into this coming season.
“Jeremy’s only played 44 games in a regular season, which is still significant,” said Neely, a couple of weeks back. “But it’s not, it’s not 60 or 65 [games]. And Linus, you know, those two certainly helped us have the records we did the last couple years. They’re both great goaltenders.
“Jeremy, he’s a guy that’s so focused and so determined and he’s got a lot of confidence in himself. And he’s obviously [at] the age, so we figured that we would ride with Jeremy. Linus did so much for the organization, both on and off the ice, a great person, but we felt, we weren’t probably going to resign him, so it was best to move him.”
Cam Neely on with @heyrichhey on Swayman talks: "Something will get done. Theres no question. Not every negotiation is as smooth as youd like & I know our fan base would like something done by now. But I’m fully confident both sides will come to an agreement before too long here" https://t.co/MKxn8GKzme
— Joe Haggerty (@HackswithHaggs) August 22, 2024
The young goalie, on the other hand, is clearly still harboring some hard feelings about last summer’s arbitration process that has now bled into these negotiations.
Swayman believes that his NHL All-Star game appearance last season coupled with his masterful playoff performance this spring have earned him a higher pay ticket, and that he now holds a healthy bit of leverage after the Bruins dealt away Linus Ullmark a few months ago. He also thinks that the rising salary cap and overall health of the NHL brand means he should be pushing the goaltending salary market with this next contract with the Black and Gold
This humble hockey writer has no doubt Swayman believes all of those things to be true even if most of it doesn’t quite hold up to the reality test in standard pro hockey contract negotiations.
The simple truth is that nobody in Swayman’s current situation has ever been paid anything close to $9.5 million per season, and that’s probably why some in the media are saying he’s seeking the “Charlie McAvoy deal” rather than the “Vasilevskiy deal.” Because any Swayman contract demand that automatically assumes he should be paid like the best goalie in the league, at this point, is simply preposterous.
Instead, it feels like both sides may have to end up settling for a shorter-term bridge contract that would give neither side what they believe they should get out of the contract. In short, it’s going to have to be a compromise where they meet in the middle while coming to grips that an eight-year max contract just isn’t in the cards for a young goalie with basically three plus years of NHL service.
A bride contract should actually be closer to the four-year, $6.2 million AAV contract offer that was immediately mocked by the Spittin’ Chiclets podcast.
The #RumorBoys are back at it again hearing the Bruins offered Swayman 4 years x $6.2M AAV
— Spittin' Chiclets (@spittinchiclets) September 4, 2024
Presented by @pinkwhitney https://t.co/H2asmmniJU pic.twitter.com/YtrTHCpjNS
Swayman will probably end up getting closer to $7 million per season on that kind of a bridge contract, which would still be the richest deal in NHL history for anybody in the 25-year-old goaltender’s current bargaining position.
Juuse Saros’ previous contract, while sharing time with Pekka Rinne, is actually a pretty fair comparable to where Swayman is right now, and that was a three-year, $15 million contract prior to his massive current contract (8 years, $7.74 million AAV) that Saros earned after several seasons for the Preds where he started 60 plus games and became the clear-cut No. 1 in Nashville.
The real challenge in the eyes of the Bruins is that a 3-4 year shorter team deal for Swayman now would leave them potentially on the hook for big, big dollars due the goaltender the next time around if he plays up to his massive potential between the pipes.
But that’s a pretty good problem for the Black and Gold to have down the road with a goalie in Swayman who is just as determined to keep playing in Boston as he is about anything else having to do with his next contract.
With training camp opening on Wednesday this week and on-ice activity getting started on Thursday morning at Warrior Ice Arena, the Bruins aren’t fazed by the reality that Swayman isn’t likely to be there at the start of camp. It doesn’t even sound like they are worried if any kind of camp holdout pushes into the exhibition season scheduled to get going this weekend with a Sunday home date against the New York Rangers.
“I don't think [a Swayman holdout] does [negatively impact the Bruins] because the way we play in camp the veterans only play the last couple of games,” said Montgomery. “We have the two extra preseason games with the [Providence Bruins] scrimmage, so we'll be able to see every goalie in camp. I think we'll get enough opportunity for every goalie to show what they can do [in preseason]."
That’s the reality that the Bruins are coming to grips with as it feels like Swayman isn’t going to be a presence at the start of training camp, and that Joonas Korpisalo and Brandon Bussi are about to start getting a lot more work on the ice than they currently anticipated.
