Boston Bruins netminder Jeremy Swayman has been awarded a $3.475M 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 its other pending RFA, Trent Frederic. The B's now have cost certainty on their roster for next season, although CapFriendly projects them to have just over $3.1M in cap space before this award is factored in, meaning they stand just over $600k above the $73.5M salary cap.
In our more detailed breakdown of Swayman’s arbitration case, we projected an award between $3.55M and $3.75M. 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 $4.8M AAV while the Bruins filed for $2M, making the mid-point $3.4M.
Swayman gets a little bit more than that, and although that’s far from the $4.8M 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 $3.475M 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.
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