Jeremy Swayman
Make it consecutive home-ice victories for Anchorage’s Jeremy Swayman in his first two starts on hockey’s biggest stage, the Stanley Cup playoffs.
The Boston Bruins’ 23-year-old rookie goaltender stopped 24 shots Sunday afternoon to support a 5-2 Mother’s Day matinee win over the Carolina Hurricanes to level the first-round series 2-2 heading into Game 5 Tuesday in Raleigh.
Sunday’s victory came on the heels of Swayman’s 25 saves in Friday’s 4-2 win in Boston, which marked Swayman’s debut start in the world’s best league. So, 2-0-0, 2.00 goals-against average, .925 save percentage. That’ll work, especially on a day Boston’s Perfection Line of Patrice Bergeron (one goal, two assists) centering Brad Marchand (two goals, three assists) and David Pastrnak (one goal, two helpers) combined for four goals and seven assists.
The win Swayman pocketed Friday also marked a milestone for an Alaska goalie – the first Stanley Cup win by a masked man from the 49th state.
“Swayman to the rescue” https://t.co/ws3hrHoZM4
— Beth Bragg (@akbragg) May 8, 2022
Swayman is one of only three Alaska goalies to play in the NHL. Ty Conklin of Anchorage racked 96 regular-season wins in his career, but he only made two playoff appearances, neither a start, and went 0-1-0 in just 25 minutes of playoff ice time. Pheonix Copley of North Pole, currently in the American Hockey League playoffs and an NHLer as recently as this season, has never played in a Stanley Cup game.
Consider Swayman a lock for Game 5.
Copley, meanwhile, savored success of his own Sunday in an AHL elimination game for his Hershey Bears. He stopped 22 shots in a 2-1 win over the visiting Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins to tie a best-of-3 series that features a Game 3 road finale for the Bears on Monday. Copley in the series opener stopped 28 of 30 shots in a 3-0 Game 1 loss Friday. He is 1-1-0 in the series, with a 1.52 goals-against average and .943 save percentage.
Copley continued to deliver in his Calder Cup history. In his career, he is 9-6-0, 1.97, .938.
That’ll work.