Swayman struggled in 2024-25, along with most everyone in Black and Gold.
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A fresh beginning awaits Jeremy Swayman and his fellow Bruins. In the meantime, with training camp still 100-plus days in the offing, these are quiet times at the club’s workout facility in Brighton.
But there was Swayman late Wednesday morning, eyes bright and smile wide despite a touch of lingering jet lag, as he unpacked his overstuffed equipment bag in the near-vacant Bruins dressing room.
“Wow, this stuff stinks,” said Swayman, shaking his head as he plucked out pieces of his fermented goalie paraphernalia. “Got to get it washed in a hurry.”
The telltale scent was of champagne and beer, the celebratory beverages of choice that showered down on Swayman and his Team USA brethren Sunday in Stockholm when copping
the IIHF World Championship gold medalwith a 1-0 overtime win over Switzerland. It was the first US gold medal in the “Worlds” since 1933.
It also was Swayman’s first gold on the international stage — adding to his World Junior bronze medal while on loan from the University of Maine — and it further whet his appetite to play for the Yanks come February at the Olympic Games in Italy.
“Completely,” he said. “I want nothing more than to be on that Olympic team and being a big piece of USA Hockey, making an impact on this game and taking a gold medal home.”
Of far more interest to Bruins fans, of course, is what version of Swayman they’ll see in the months leading up to, and following, the Winter Games in Milan-Cortina. He struggled in 2024-25, along with most everyone in Black and Gold. The hope throughout the organization now is that the gold-plated, refreshed version of the No. 1 backstop serves as a leverage point in getting the franchise back in the Stanley Cup chase.
On the eve of the championship game, after backing the US to its semifinal win over Sweden, Swayman said he felt “rebirthed in a way” by the tournament. He repeated that sentiment Wednesday, while making clear what price a disappointing season extracted from him.
“The ups and down of the season definitely took a toll,” he said. “The outside noise I was facing, with personal matters, and we weren’t getting results as a team. I felt like I was going to the rink every day, doing what I needed to do, and still just wasn’t getting results — I had to dig in deeper, had to find different ways to find a way to win, just feel good on the ice. This [playing for Team USA] was just a great way for me to do it.”
Some of that outside noise, he noted, included the lingering narrative about his negotiations for a new contract (eight years/$66 million) and the late start to his training camp that came with it. His numbers slumped. So did his confidence. All of which had him eager of a mental reset as he headed to Europe for Uncle Sam.
For a guy looking for a reset, a “different mind-set,” as Swayman put it, it was good to be away with his fellow Americans,
including Bruins teammates Andrew Peeke and Mason Lohrei.
“I truly felt it was a total mind-set thing,” Swayman said. “I know I can play at this level. I know I can have success at this level. But my mind-set was something that was challenged this year, and what I got to experience with this tournament was, if I get my mind right, I’m pretty hard to score on — and that’s something I could really build on.”
“The hardest thing ever was letting other people down,” said Swayman. “Not having confidence in myself, walking down the street and worrying about what other people are thinking, what other people are saying. That’s not who I am. That’s not who Jeremy is. And I just said, [expletive] that, I’m just going to carry myself with the demeanor that I’m here for a reason — I’m going to help this team win, I am going out to be who I am.”
The contrast struck him, noted Swayman, when walking the streets of Denmark and Sweden, where people came up to him, asking for autographs and pictures.
“Two weeks [earlier], I would have been like, ‘Why?’ ” he said. “I just changed my mind-set. I said, this is why, because I can have an impact on people and I can have an impact on the game of hockey, and it’s an incredible opportunity. I have to enjoy it and embrace it.”
To emphasize his point, Swayman emphatically snapped his fingers, just once, mirroring the click inside his head.
“That’s exactly what I did,” he said. “Boom, I’m back. It was pretty amazing.”
