It’s been pretty apparent all season that the Bruins did not get the overall goaltending performance this season that they enjoyed last year, but it was never more starkly obvious than Thursday night in Ottawa.
At one end, Jeremy Swayman was yanked from a 6-3 loss to the Sens at the Canadian Tire Centre after allowing four goals on 15 shots behind a B’s team that clearly wasn’t ready to play, and at the other end Linus Ullmark made perhaps the NHL save of the season while backstopping his team to a one-sided victory.
Linus Ullmark robbing Mason Lohrei. What a Save! pic.twitter.com/4DZ077CWL7
— Joe Haggerty (@HackswithHaggs) March 14, 2025
It will obviously become a long-term calculation determining whether the Bruins made the right choice in tapping Swayman as their No. 1 guy after shipping Ullmark to Ottawa last summer, but last night, it sure felt like the Bruins picked the wrong puck-stopper. And it’s felt like that since training camp when Swayman put the B’s organization through an ugly, protracted holdout that’s predictably played a big part in submarining this entire season for the Black and Gold.
Swayman spoke earlier this week about stepping up into more of a leadership role after so many veteran leaders and voices were shipped out last week.
“I’m lucky to be a goalie because we’re natural leaders and we have the heartbeat of the team,” said Swayman after Tuesday night’s win over the Panthers. “That’s just my job. I know my role here. I can be rah-rah at times, but also I can just make sure I’m doing the right things behind the scenes and obviously on the ice.
“It’s something I really take seriously, and I’ve learned from the best in [Patrice Bergeron] and [Brad Marchand]. I can honor them by carrying myself the way they did. They had a ton of success, so I can believe in my preparation, my recovery and my effort every day. That’s something I hope the other guys can build off of.”
But after last night’s rough first period that featured soft goals allowed and misplays with the puck that led to Ottawa scores, Swayman now has a 20-22-6 record with a 2.98 goals against average and a mediocre .897 save percentage. Even worse, that save percentage drops down to a wretched .882 when Swayman has started three consecutive games this season, the kind of workload one should expect when getting paid $8 million per season.
On this night, Swayman was just as bad as the Bruins players around him at the start of a game where they couldn’t match Ottawa’s intensity.
Joe Sacco kept his comments to the teamwide lack of execution across the board in the first period, but there’s no doubt that Swayman was part of the general malaise in a must-win game against a team they’re chasing in the wild-card playoff race.
“We just weren’t good enough in most of the facets in the first period,” said Sacco. “Our execution wasn’t quite there, we weren’t sharp, our passing was off, and because of that, they got us back on our heels and then took the play to us in the first period. … I think a lot of it was self-inflicted. I think our decisions with the puck, at times, weren’t accurate.”
🎥 Coach Sacco and the #NHLBruins react following Thursday night's 6-3 loss to the Senators in Ottawa.
— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) March 14, 2025
Full postgame reaction ➡️ https://t.co/xc56ZFu65j pic.twitter.com/pOAdDV3Tzb
After enjoying the best goaltending in the NHL last season, the Bruins are tied with four other teams for 21st in the NHL with an .896 save percentage this season. The goalie due of Ullmark and Swayman effectively hid some of the flaws on the Bruins roster last season, but they have all come out front and center this season while the goaltending quality behind them dropped a couple of notches.
The real question moving forward is whether or not Swayman can rebound from this season when he gets back into a normal routine with a regular training camp, and perhaps now is more mentally and physically prepared for the rigors of being a No. 1 goaltender.
At the other end, it hasn’t been all roses for Ullmark (17-11-3, .912 save percentage) in Ottawa this season as he’s battled some injuries for a Senators team still figuring out how to be a contender. But he was stellar in stopping 22-of-25 shots, including the show-stopping save on Mason Lohrei’s one-timer that kept it from becoming a one-goal game in the third period. Instead, the Bruins never got closer than a two-goal deficit in the third before Ottawa ultimately potted an empty netter, and the Bruins were left to hear Ullmark thumping his chest a little bit after it was all over.
“I was just laughing,” said Ullmark. “Like, sometimes you wonder, ‘How did that happen?’ Like, what happened in the prior [play], how did I get here and sort of just have to smile and laugh about it because you saved it and then let it go and focus on the next one, because you don't want to make a brilliant save like that and end up having a bad goal right after, just because you're so caught up in the moment of, ‘Oh, I'm feeling like a stud now, after making that save,’ or something.”
The silver lining in all of this is that the B’s probably don’t want to come out winners in games like Thursday night’s showdown in Ottawa. It’s nice to see good returns from newly acquired players like Casey Mittelstadt and Marat Khusnutdinov scoring their first goals in a Bruins uniform, and Henri Jokiharju has been rock-solid on the back end for the B’s since coming over from the Buffalo Sabres.
I would have traded Justin Brazeau straight up for Marat Khusnutdinov
— Drop the Mitts Hockey (@dropmittshockey) March 14, 2025
Absolutely fleece job by the #NHLBruins
pic.twitter.com/TztlLfYpHU
But make no mistake about it, the Bruins would be much better off, from a long-term perspective, if they sink into the first-round lottery and assure themselves of a top-10 first-round pick by finishing out of the playoff picture. That’s where they are the most likely to secure the kind of No. 1 center talent they’re very much still looking for to replace the retired Patrice Bergeron.
A loss like Thursday night’s to Ottawa puts them closer to securing that first rounder after a mini-fire sale shipping out Brad Marchand, Brandon Carlo and Charlie Coyle at the NHL trade deadline.
But the goaltending picture is one they have to hope improves drastically for the better next season once Swayman puts this long, rough year in the rear-view mirror, and hopefully learns a few things from humbling moments like getting vastly outplayed by his goalie hug buddy in a big, late season tilt in Ottawa.