Did the Boston Bruins make a mistake trading Linus Ullmark instead of Jeremy Swayman? Are we looking at a situation where the Bruins go from having one of the best goaltender tandems in the league to having neither of them?
While unlikely, it is a possibility.
The Bruins opened up training camp this week, and did so without Swayman, their number one goalie. The restricted free agent is currently without a contract, and the negotiations, while ongoing, have been far from successful.
Swayman is looking for a long-term, high-paying contract after the Bruins made the decision to trade Ullmark to Ottawa during the offseason. On his side, it’s clear there’s a belief that he has the leverage in negotiations. However, it hasn’t resulted in any movement on a deal.
According to WEEI’s Rich Keefe, Swayman wants to be paid like a top goalie at over $10 million per year. The Bruins, on the other hand, reportedly don’t want to go beyond $8 million. That’s a major difference between a player and an organization.
As of today, there are only two goalies in the NHL with contracts above $10 million per year: Sergei Bobrovsky and Carey Price.
Price, now retired, won the Vezina in 2015 before being awarded the contract in 2017. Bobrovsky is a two-time Vezina winner and led the Florida Panthers to its first Stanley Cup this past season. Swayman wants to be paid in their range, ahead of other top goalies such as other Vezina winners Connor Hellebuyck and Andrei Vasilevskiy.
Including the aforementioned names, only five goalies earn more than $8 million per year. The other on the list is Ilya Sorokin. Swayman, reportedly, wants more than all of them.
Now, it obviously makes sense for a player to want as much money as they can get during the time they’re in the league. But it seems as if the Bruins clearly feel Swayman, while successful early on in his career, hasn’t earned that top-tier money just yet.
Swayman, for the first time in his career, is going into a season as a true number one between the pipes. Despite his great 2.34 goals against average and .919 save percentage, he has yet to play in more than 44 games in a season in his career. Sure, that’s expected to change this year as he’s been given the reins to the team, but it hasn’t happened yet so there’s no way to know how he’d handle the extra workload.
When speaking to reporters, Bruins general manager Don Sweeney was clearly frustrated with where things stood between the team and their top goalie. While he wouldn’t go into details on the exact talks, he did express disappointment that Swayman decided not to show up while unsigned.
“We’re excited about the players that are here and looking to move forward,” Sweeney said while also acknowledging that Swayman has the right to not report without a deal. “As I said, I’m disappointed, but at the end of the day, I’m optimistic because I think we’ll find a landing spot before December 1st.”
The bright side is that the Bruins and Swayman do have until December 1 to reach a deal on a new contract. If nothing’s done by that date, though, then Swayman would have to sit out the entire season. That’s something that neither side wants to happen nor is it likely it will.
Still, the longer Swayman goes without a new contract, the more chatter will pick up regarding his future as a member of the Bruins. Right now, I’d still put money on the sides working out a deal before the start of the regular season. But if the distance between the two sides continues to be this large and compromises aren’t made, we could be looking at a situation that gets ugly.
