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Greg Wyshynski, ESPNSep 18, 2024, 12:35 PM ET
- Greg Wyshynski is ESPN’s senior NHL writer.
Boston Bruins general manager Don Sweeney said that restricted free agent goaltender Jeremy Swayman will not take part in training camp without a contract and pushed back on “inaccuracies” about their protracted negotiations.
Swayman, 25, is expected to be the primary starting goaltender for the Bruins after they traded tandem-mate Linus Ullmark to the Ottawa Senators in the offseason.
Swayman made $3.475 million on a one-year contract last season, which was awarded through arbitration. He opted not to file for arbitration this offseason and the Bruins declined to take Swayman to arbitration, leaving his next contract to be decided through negotiations between Sweeney and agent Lewis Gross.
Sweeney said Swayman has “chosen to wait, and rightfully so, until a contract is settled” before reporting to the Bruins, adding that he’s “disappointed” that Swayman won’t be in attendance.
“Every day that Jeremy is out, it hurts our team and it hurts him, because of the preparation that we’d like to do and he needs to do,” said Sweeney, speaking at Bruins training camp Wednesday.
Although he wouldn’t predict when a deal would get done, Sweeney said he expected Swayman would rejoin the Bruins before Dec. 1, which is the deadline for the contract to be valid for this season.
Swayman played 44 games for the Bruins last season. In four seasons with Boston, Swayman is 79-33-15 with a .919 save percentage and a 2.34 goals-against average. He was given the nod as the team’s top goaltender during the offseason. Sweeney said that both Ullmark and Swayman wanted to play upward of 55 games this season. “Which is impossible. So we made a decision,” he said.
Ullmark was traded in June to Ottawa in a deal that saw veteran goalie Joonas Korpisalo shipped to Boston. Korpisalo and 26-year-old Brandon Bussi are expected to have the crease until Swayman is back in.
There have been reports that the Bruins offered Swayman an eight-year contract, the maximum length the NHL allows. There have also been reports that Swayman’s camp is looking for upward of $9.5 million in average annual value on his next contract.
Although Sweeney didn’t talk about specifics in his negotiations, he angrily pushed back on what he called “inaccuracies” in reports about his talks with Swayman. In particular, Sweeney railed against a report on the “Spittin’ Chiclets” podcast this month that Sweeney had not returned calls from Swayman for three weeks.
“It’s been reported we’ve been incommunicative. That’s far from the truth. I think you’d be hard-pressed to find anybody in the league where I’d spend three weeks not returning a phone call,” he said. “I’m not talking specifics. You’re just not going to get them. But I think it’s bulls— that somebody says I wouldn’t return a call for three weeks. That’s inaccurate.”
He also pushed back on a report that the two sides were close to a deal as Bruins camp opened.
“It’s 100% inaccurate. [Can I] make it any more pointed than that?” Sweeney said before leaving the podium and ending the news conference.
