The saga is over. Jeremy Swayman reaches a deal with the Boston Bruins, signing an eight-year, $66 million contract, paying him $8.25 million per season. Elliotte Friedman broke the news on Sunday morning.
Swayman and Boston: 8 x $8.25M
— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) October 6, 2024
There was a lot of drama surrounding this situation, as Bruins General Manager Don Sweeney and President Cam Neely traded shots with Swayman and his camp through the media.
First, Sweeney denied the allegations that he hadn’t reached out to Swayman or his camp for three weeks in September as training camp began. Then, when Neely addressed the situation, he said, “I don’t want to get into the weeds with what [Swayman’s] ask is, but I know that I have 64 million reasons why I’d be playing right now.”
Swayman’s agent, Lewis Gross, released a statement after Neely’s comments:
“Normally, I do not release statements or discuss negotiations through the media. However, in this case, I feel I need to defend my client. At [Monday’s] press conference, $64 million was referenced. This was the first time that number was discussed in our negotiations. Prior to the press conference, no offer was made reaching that level.”
“We are extremely disappointed. This was not fair to Jeremy. We will take a few days to discuss where we go from here.”
The Anchorage, Alaska native has been one half of the most dynamic goaltending tandems across the NHL for the last two seasons, pairing up with Linus Ullmark. Swayman has boasted a 49-16-12 record, a 2.4 goals against average (GAA), and a .918 save percentage (S%).
However, this tandem was broken up this offseason as the Bruins traded Ullmark inter-division to the Ottawa Senators in exchange for goaltender Joonas Korpisalo, forward Mark Kastelic and the 25th overall pick (Dean Letourneau) in the 2024 draft.
Now, the Bruins hand the 25-year-old the keys to the starter’s crease in Boston for the next eight seasons.
