Jeremy Swayman
That’s a wrap on Jeremy Swayman’s first full season in the world’s best hockey league.
The 23-year-old goaltender from Anchorage and his Boston Bruins mates fell 3-2 at Carolina on Saturday afternoon in Game 7 of the first-round series in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
The Hurricanes, buoyed by two goals and helper from Max Domi, never trailed in the finale. No stunner there – the home team won every game in the series. The game wasn’t quite as close as the score indicates. The window-dressing, extra-attacker goal Boston’s David Pastrnak scored to cut the margin to 3-2 came with 22 seconds left.
Swayman stopped 28 of 31 shots. The rookie played the final five games of the series after taking over for Linus Ullmark, who lost Games 1 and 2 in Raleigh. He went 3-2-0, with a 2.63 goals-against average and .911 save percentage, and he became the first Alaska goalie to pocket a Stanley Cup playoff victory.
Somber ending – it always is – but Swayman’s first full NHL season marked a strong career move forward. In the regular season, he went 23-14-3, 2.41 and .914 save, with three shutouts. Pencil him in for the circuit’s All-Rookie Team.
Those 23 wins were the second-most by an Alaska goalie in the NHL. Granted, only three masked men from the state have reached the world’s highest league – Ty Conklin of Anchorage and Pheonix Copley of North Pole are the others. Conklin, who is retired, won 25 games for the Detroit Red Wings in 2008-09.
Swayman made a strong case he could be Boston’s goalie of the future after stalwart Tuukka Rask retired during the season.
Because Swayman played 10 NHL games in 2020-21 and also played for the Bruins’ American Hockey League affiliate in Providence, R.I., during that truncated Covid season, he next enters the final season of his 3-year, $3.15-million entry level contract. If he continues his progress – and all signs point to his diligence, maturity and upside — he’ll be due a raise.
The Bruins drafted Swayman in the fourth round in 2017. He played three college seasons at Maine, where he was a first-team All-American and Hockey East’s Player of the Year as a junior.