Boston Bruins netminder Jeremy Swayman has been awarded a $3.475MM one-year contract in arbitration, according to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman.
This news comes just a few hours after the team reached an agreement on a two-year contract with their other pending RFA, Trent Frederic. They now have cost certainty on their roster for next season, although CapFriendly projects them to have just over $3.1MM in cap space before this award is factored in, meaning they stand just over $600k above the $83.5MM salary cap with a full roster.
In our more detailed breakdown of Swayman’s arbitration case, we projected an award between $3.55MM and $3.75MM. This award comes in just below that projection, although it is ever so slightly above the mid-point between the two parties’ filings. Swayman had filed for a $4.8MM AAV while the Bruins filed for $2MM, making the mid-point $3.4MM.
Swayman gets a little bit more than that, and although that’s far from the $4.8MM he filed for it still represents a significant pay raise from the $925k against the cap he cost in 2022-23.
He fully earned that hefty pay raise with his play last season, as well. In his age-24 season, Swayman played in 37 games and went 24-6-4 with a .920 save percentage and 2.27 goals-against-average.
While those numbers were undoubtedly aided by the Bruins’ historic regular season dominance and their exceptional group of defensemen, Swayman’s 2021-22 (.914 save percentage in 41 games) and 2020-21 (.945 save percentage in 10 games) beef up his resume.
Swayman was also an accomplished starter in his college days at the University of Maine, and looking at his performance at every level of hockey it’s hard to argue he’s not worth the $3.475MM he’s been awarded today. Where this leaves Boston, though, is in a curious spot.
Although some might assume that the Bruins would be interested in trading Swayman since they already have Vezina Trophy winner Linus Ullmark entrenched as a starter, that’s highly unlikely to happen. As The Athletic’s Fluto Shinzawa noted in his recent mailbag, the Bruins believe an Ullmark-Swayman tandem “will be their position of strength for 2023-24” and help them return to the playoffs despite losing some high-end talent in Patrice Bergeron, Dmitry Orlov, and Tyler Bertuzzi. (subscription link)
Although Brandon Bussi is waiting in the wings playing for the AHL’s Providence Bruins and could be ready to handle backup duty, Ullmark does have a history of injuries earlier in his career and the safety Swayman provides to the Bruins’ goaltending depth is legitimately valuable.
That being said, one has to believe that Swayman will eventually want to be a true number-one goalie, as his talent certainly merits receiving that chance. Whether that chance will come in Boston remains to be seen.
Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
Ouch. Puts them over the cap now. Gonna have to buy someone out or make a trade or 2.
Not sure the Bruins can afford Swayman at that price with their cap situation. They just can’t afford $8.475 million for two goalies. Ullmark has a 16-team no-trade clause that limits his market. The Bruins may not want to move Swayman, but they may be forced to.
Yup. Two expensive goalies, no first or second line center, and no cap space pretty much screams that a trade is needed.
Rarely have I read so much garment-rending over a team retaining the most recent pair of Jennings Trophy winners, one of which is also the most recent Vezina Trophy winner. Sweeney is well-aware of Boston’s cap issues & roster needs, so he likely has something cooking. Patience.
Especially considering 95% of being a GM these days is cap massaging. He’ll get them cap compliant and likely will address their lack of top 6 center issue while doing it.
Rarely has a team so clearly in it’s win widow, with talented wingers, defensemen, and goalies, up and down the lineup, been so devoid of top 9 centers. In August.
Eh, quite aside from that I agree about the benefits of having two great goalies on the roster, Boston’s really not clearly in a win window. This is a team that just lost a LOT of talent: Bergeron, Krejci, Hall, Orlov, Bertuzzi, Foligno, Hathaway. No one should be expecting them to win a Cup this coming season. Making the playoffs in a suddenly much tougher division should be their goal, and that’s as much as anyone should want of them.
The second part is this is suddenly a much younger team. Brad Marchand is the only guy on the roster older than 30 who’s signed for a contract beyond next season. The remaining core will be around a while. This is a season where their goal should be to see how many people can step up to larger roles: Zacha, Zboril, Frederic, Lohrei, etc … and if they can’t, to figure out where to go next.
I agree with Nha – losing Bergeron puts this team out of the playoffs. If it weren’t for the pedigree of the logo from the past 15 years, you’d see this team for what it is. Pasta and Marchand + 3rd liners . McAvoy and Lindholm + a bunch of so so defenders. A good platoon goalie setup.
As a Shark fan several years into this pain – it reminds me of having Karlsson, Meier, Hertl, Burns and Couture + a bunch of bottom 6 retreads, poor D depth and a mediocre goalie platoon. I think people need to get used to seeing Boston being bad for a long time – the next mighty dominoes to fall into obscurity will be Pitts and Tampa Bay within the next 3 years who have emptied their prospect cupboards over the past few glory years (and they did it far more successfully than Boston did; sorry B’s fans, no hate – I respect the team).
Some of us are just a bit more used to this than others – SJS were 20 years of high performance deep so it was hard to adjust to losing so much. The BOS front office should be figuring out their age window and building around key personnel (24/25 year olds and younger) – this likely includes Swayman so it wouldn’t surprise me to see him stay and Ullmark traded within the next 2 seasons.
It will be a long season in Boston!