One thing that was never in doubt was Jeremy Swayman’s heartfelt desire to remain with the Bruins.
There was never an odd chance he was going to sign a rich offer sheet to play elsewhere, and he certainly didn’t want to be traded to a barren hockey outpost like Anaheim. Bruins President Cam Neely confirmed as much when talking about Swayman’s situation a week ago during Bruins Media Day while also clearly annoyed with the way things were going in talks at that point. Despite some of the verbal barbs being lobbed back and forth and any of the hard feelings built up during an intense negotiation, there was always going to be a reconciliation at the end as long as the B's goaltender eventually decided that it was time to play hockey Bruins hockey.
That happened on Sunday morning prior to the Bruins leaving for their flight to Florida for Tuesday night’s season opener against the Panthers, and Swayman said all the right things in the aftermath.
“There’s a lot of demons that can creep in your head. There’s a lot of unknowns,” said Swayman, of the low points in negotiations. “And again, what I knew was my heart was going to be in Boston, and I was going to do everything I could, and my team did everything we could to stay a Bruin for my whole career, and that’s going to continue. So that’s all I did.
“The light was at the end of the tunnel, and we knew that we had tools and a reason to stay here. And again, management thought the same thing. So that was a really special point where we finally reached an agreement, and we’ll both be in the same boat of wanting to win the Stanley Cup.”
It was obvious Swayman was irked at points last season after going through an unpleasant arbitration process, and that played out to a degree as the 25-year-old sought out a big-time raise despite never playing more than 44 games in a regular season. Part of the difficulty in the contract talks were the lack of a real comparable for an RFA goaltender with a limited resume that was seeking a payday usually reserved for netminder that have already proved they are workhorses between the pipes.
There is little doubt Swayman has shown that potential and that he should eventually live up to the contract that he’s now signed for eight years and $66 million. But the closest comparable contract to Swayman is Juuse Saros, who is being paid $7.75 million per season on a long term deal he signed after posting three straight strong seasons where he’s surpassed 60 games played in each of them.
For the Bruins, once they opted not to take Swayman to arbitration and traded away Linus Ullmark it was always going to be a bigger contract for their All-Star goalie.
The Bruins are gambling a little by skipping the bridge contract step and going straight to a big money eight-year investment, but it could also pay off for them as great value once Igor Shesterkin and Sergei Bobrovsky reset the UFA goaltending market a couple of years down the road. The Bruins are buying out six years of UFA service for Swayman and essentially getting the best years of his NHL career, and it will be a very good investment as long as he can maintain his performance once his workload gets up in the 55-65 games played range.
There’s absolutely no reason to think he won’t be able to do just that, but a goalie can only prove he’s a true No. 1 workhorse by doing it rather than relying on fancy stats or efficiency ratings to make assumptions. That, and winning the first Stanley Cup in Boston since 2011, are now what Swayman is focused on after getting enough financial and job security to last him a lifetime.
“What I’m truly focused on is the future and the here and now,” said Swayman. “Everything else was a blur in my mind. All I’m worried about is being in net for the Boston Bruins right now. I’m overjoyed with it. I’m really excited about that.
“The motivation is the Stanley Cup, through and through. That’s all I care about…I can guarantee you that this step and this chapter in my career is going to motivate me above and beyond what I have had before. The end goal is to win a Stanley Cup, and I believe that this is a group that can do it.”
Interesting that the two parties that really played the heavies in this negotiation, Bruins President Cam Neely and Swayman’s agent Lewis Gross, were both missing from Sunday’s press conference after things got a tad heated during negotiations. The culmination was Neely revealing that the Bruins were sitting on a $64 million offer that pretty much everybody felt was more than fair market value for Swayman, but it still took another week before the two sides finally came to an agreement.
“I have 64 million reasons why I’d be playing right now.”
— Spittin' Chiclets (@spittinchiclets) September 30, 2024
Cam Neely on Jeremy Swayman. pic.twitter.com/SgiD05PhCg
Who knows what might have happened if the holdout had rolled over into the regular season?
But that is a hypothetical that nobody will ever know the answer to even as Joonas Korpisalo will get the opening night Bruins start against Florida with Swayman now rushing to get himself game-ready after missing the entirety of NHL training camp.
The $66 million question now is just how much there will be a period of adjustment and struggle for Swayman after missing camp, and then dealing with the mental and physical pressure of so much being on his young, strong shoulders. If Swayman doesn’t get off to a good start and that leads to some struggles for the Black and Gold, the prediction here is that he is going to hear it from a Boston fan base that doesn’t love athletes holding out for a bigger payday they didn’t completely earn.
But the beauty of it is that it’s all in Swayman’s control at this point. If he was able to keep himself sharp while working out at Boston University and turn that into a decent start, all is going to be forgiven pretty quickly and Swayman can go about continuing to develop into one of the best young goalies in the NHL. He is certainly confident enough to believe he can do it and now it’s just up to Swayman to keep living up with the swagger he’s justifiably built up over the last four years in Boston.