Feb. 27: Boston reassigned DiPietro to Providence following last night’s win over the Blue Jackets, per the AHL’s transactions log. Swayman will return to the team for tomorrow’s game against the Flyers. DiPietro was needed for six minutes of game action to relieve Korpisalo, who was temporarily pulled by concussion spotters before returning. He stopped both shots he faced.
Feb. 24: DiPietro was recalled back to Boston today, per Ryan. It’s unclear if he’s up solely for practice purposes or if they’re expecting to need him to back up Korpisalo against the Blue Jackets if Swayman doesn’t return to the team by Thursday.
Feb. 20: Boston has assigned DiPietro back to Providence, Conor Ryan of the Boston Globe reports.
Feb. 18: The Bruins announced Wednesday that they’ve recalled goaltender Michael DiPietro from AHL Providence on an emergency basis. He’ll serve as Boston’s lone NHL-contracted practice netminder for the time being, as Jeremy Swayman (USA) and Joonas Korpisalo (Finland) are still representing their respective countries at the Olympics.
Back during training camp, there was concern DiPietro wouldn’t make it through waivers on his way to Providence. The 26-year-old had emerged as one of the AHL’s top netminders over the previous two seasons, including a .927 SV% in 40 games last year that earned him the Baz Bastien Memorial Award as the league’s best goaltender.
He’s well on his way to taking home that hardware for a second straight season. In 28 appearances for the P-Bruins, he’s put up a downright ridiculous .942 SV% and 1.64 GAA with a 21-5-0 record – but somehow only has one shutout to his name. Nonetheless, he has a 12-point lead in save percentage on the second-place netminder with at least 20 appearances.
He’s signed through next season at a $812,500 cap hit, giving the Bruins almost no choice but to work with Korpisalo’s 10-team no-trade list and find a new home for the veteran backup this summer. If they can’t, they’d essentially be forced into trading DiPietro to avoid the near certainty of losing him for nothing on waivers next October.
Or, just a thought, waive Korpisalo next fall if not traded? Then you do t lose Depietro
Two years left after this season at $4m – with the expanding salary cap it might be money well eaten.
Or just buy him out. The penalty is more or less even for what they’d have to eat burying him in the minors, but the benefit is not having to bribe a team to take him off of Boston’s hands.
Except they would than have a salary burden for four years instead of two.
Happy for DiPietro. Between the Canucks and Covid, he seemed like a real bad luck case. I hope he can settle into the NHL and stay for awhile.
Umm.. They called him up to practice as both Swayman and Korpisolo are at the Olympics and they had no goalies when practice resumed. They have since returned him to Providence (as stated in the update) so he can play over the weekend. Barring injury or trade he’s unlikely to be back this season.
Korpisalo has one of the weirdest, goofiest shot-stopping styles of any netminder currently in the league. He always looks like a tall baby deer on ice.
Korpi with some more retention is tradable for a BU, especially to a rebuilding team. But he has a 10 team NTC.
Trade Swayman and use the money for better players.