Boston Bruins
“Just one shot at a time, brother.”
Jeremy Swayman kept things simple when asked his mindset during his recent heater between the pipes.
“Just one shot at a time, brother,” Swayman said of his approach on Saturday night.
Swayman’s zen-like mindset was evident during Boston’s shootout round against the Red Wings at TD Garden. With a critical two points up for grabs, Swayman had his work cut out for him matched up against a trio of uber-skilled Detroit forwards in Lucas Raymond, Patrick Kane, and Alex DeBrincat.
Raymond’s attempt was turned aside by a glove-side stop from Swayman. After Kane tried to get Swayman to bite with an array of dangles, his sharp wrister was snatched out of the air by Boston’s netminder.
And on Detroit’s final bid of the night, Swayman once again didn’t budge against DeBrincat — shifting to his left and denying him with a pad stop to close out a much-needed victory for Boston.
It was the latest in what has been an extended stretch of strong play for Swayman, whose resurgence has been key in keeping a banged-up Bruins roster afloat.
“You guys feel it, the fans, everyone upstairs, feels it, and, most importantly, our players feel it,” Bruins head coach Marco Sturm said of Swayman’s recent play. “It’s such a good feeling when you have that. All year long, since Day One when I met him, he’s been rock solid, off the ice and on. The calmness he brings in every game, giving us a chance to win, it’s a good feeling.”
With the Bruins soldiering on without two of their top players in David Pastrnak and Charlie McAvoy for the time being, the onus was going to fall on their other big guns to right the ship on Saturday after a lackluster showing on Friday night against the Rangers.
Morgan Geekie did his job up front, lighting the lamp two more times and once again tying Nathan MacKinnon for the league lead in tallies with 20 on the year.
And Swayman once again kept a shorthanded Bruins defense afloat against a skilled Detroit squad, stopping 24 of 26 shots (as well as all three shootout bids) in the 3-2 victory.
Since getting shelled for seven goals in a blowout loss to the Senators on Oct. 27, Swayman has been the best netminder in the NHL.
In the month of November, Swayman went 8-2 across 10 starts while sporting a .934 save percentage.
Among the 78 qualified goalies across the NHL, Swayman ranks first overall with a whopping 19.4 goals saved above expected across 17 games played, per MoneyPuck.
Swayman’s stellar play is what the Bruins were envisioning when they signed him to an eight-year, $66 million contract last October.
That sentiment took a hit in what was ultimately a lost season for both Swayman and the Bruins.
Be it an extended contract-related holdout that robbed him of training camp, the raised expectations placed upon him as the team’s unquestioned No. 1 goalie, or porous defensive structure in front of him, Swayman labored in 2024-25.
After being the key conduit in Boston’s run to the second run of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs, Swayman regressed last year. He sported just an .892 save percentage across 58 outings, while his -9.1 goals saved above expected ranked 92nd out of 103 qualified goalies.
An impressive showing for Team USA en route to a gold-medal run at World Championships in May allowed Swayman to end a sour year on a positive note. A full training camp and an offseason rife with self-reflection allowed Swayman to flush away his struggles from last season.
So far, the results speak for themselves.
“He’s always been a really good goalie,” Sturm said of Swayman. “Goalies need confidence going into the game, the season. He just couldn’t get out of it last year. We all saw it coming. He just couldn’t get out of it. This year, since Day One — I talked to him on the phone, the first time I met him — he came in with a smile. He still has that smile every day. Now he’s in a very good spot.”
The Bruins still have plenty of work to do this winter when it comes to getting its top players healthy and shoring up some leaky D-zone play.
But so long as Swayman is operating at this level, the Bruins have to like their chances whenever Swayman is the man in net.
“We all feed off it,” Mark Kastelic said of Swayman’s poise in net. “You can feed off his confidence. He’s so confident back there right now. That allows us to focus on doing all our jobs. When he’s back there, we definitely have all the faith in him. He’s come up huge multiple times for us this month.”
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