Swayman’s resurgence very encouraging for Bruins amid critical stretch originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
The Boston Bruins won’t accomplish much this season if Jeremy Swayman doesn’t play like a top 10 goalie, and for much of the 2024-25 NHL season, he has played below that level.
But over the last few weeks, Swayman has steadily risen toward an elite level, and it’s the most encouraging aspect of the team’s performance during that span.
The latest example of Swayman’s upswing came in Tuesday night’s showdown versus the Tampa Bay Lightning at TD Garden. This same Lightning team dominated the B’s 4-1 in Tampa Bay last week, but a repeat result wasn’t in the cards as Swayman stood tall in net. He made a season-high 43 saves, including 10 saves on 11 high-danger shots against.
Despite the recent uptick in his performance, Swayman still thinks there’s more room for improvement.
“I’ve still got a lot of growth to do,” Swayman told reporters postgame. “It’s just one game at a time. My job is to maintain that one shot at a time mentality, keep working in practice and keep building good habits. That’s what I’ve experienced this year and it’s helped me a lot.”
Swayman played outstanding last Saturday when the Bruins beat their nemesis, the Florida Panthers, for the first time all season in an exciting 4-3 overtime win. The Panthers tallied 111 shot attempts and 43 shots on net, but Swayman made 40 saves — many of which were Grade A — to help the B’s snap their six-game losing streak.
Swayman has started eight games over the last three weeks, which is the most of any goalie in the league during that period. The increased workload hasn’t been an issue for him, based on his impressive .925 save percentage and a 2.39 GAA during that span. He has a .919 save percentage in six January starts, and that’s come against a lot of quality opponents such as the Lightning (twice), Panthers, Oilers and Maple Leafs.
“It helps a lot,” Bruins interim head coach Joe Sacco told reporters postgame when asked about Swayman’s recent performance.
“You look over the last couple of years, our goaltending has been outstanding, right? We all know that. When you make mistakes, when you have breakdowns in your coverage, and he’s playing the way he does, certainly you can breathe a little bit easier.
“You don’t want to give up as many chances as we have the last couple games, but certainly when he’s playing like that, it makes everybody feel a little bit more — I don’t want to say relaxed, because that’s not the right word, but a little bit more confident, I guess is the right word.”
Swayman’s resurgence is coming at the perfect time for the Bruins as they navigate through arguably the toughest part of their schedule.
They play a lot of good teams in January, and that difficult stretch continues through the end of the month with matchups versus the Ottawa Senators (twice), New Jersey Devils, Colorado Avalanche and Winnipeg Jets. The Devils, Avs and Jets are all in a playoff spot, and the Senators are only one point out in the East.
The Bruins are technically in a playoff spot — the first wild card position in the East — but they’ve played more games than just about every team, which is why in terms of points percentage Boston is 10th in the conference.
There’s a lot of work to be done for the Bruins in terms of securing a playoff berth. They aren’t going to sail comfortably into the postseason like the last two years.
If the Bruins are going to keep their league-best eight-year playoff appearance streak going, Swayman needs to take his performance to an even higher level.
