If anyone broke Mr. Wonderful it was his agent and the Players Association.
They fed him crap about "resetting the market for goalies" and probably told him he's the next Martin Brodeur, and of course he's so highly educated that he's THE PACKAGE!
His head swelled so big he could barely walk with it, let alone skate with it.
They broke him while he sucked it up like a fat kid at Thanksgiving with a plate of gravy.
I'm really worried that he's the next cautionary tale.
The next Rick DiPietro?
Here's my take on the whole Swayman debate...
1. Fundamentally, I hate paying goalies premium money. Any goalie. I've been pretty vocal about that.
2. Swayman stunk this season. But the team stunk too, so I'm not putting 100% of that on him.
3. I do think he'll be better next year. He's already shown that he can perform with a decent team in front of him and the guy didn't suddenly forget how to stop pucks. He knows he needs to be better and he strikes me as a guy who's a professional and is dedicated to his craft.
4. I'm not a fan of the personal attacks on him that some people have posted on this board. I find that extremely distasteful. He was simply trying to extract as much money from the club as he could get. I expect EVERY player to try to do that. I ALSO expect the front office to do their job too. I blame Sweeney more for that awful contract, than I do Swayman.
5. Goaltending isn't the reason this team didn't make the playoffs. Offense and special teams were.
Bottom line is that Swayman was disappointing (fixable), we can't score (needs to be addressed this summer), had sustained injuries to key players on the blue line (will correct itself with time), and then threw in the towel at the trade deadline because this team was going nowhere.