Speculation: The Bruins and Jeremy Swayman are far apart in contract term (length) and dollar amount.

[Suntouchable13]

So the Bruins are getting close to Swayman’s value. I wonder if 72 million gets it done or if the Bruins will need to get to 80?

It's not the Leafs, man, where they give players what they want.

 

[EXTRAS]

In reality this should be a 6.5m contract mid term contract, especially compared to swaymans comparables. It's just unluck of the draw which team(s) run into the few really greedy players. As a gm, I'd probably consider moving on from players before contract talks come up if they were employing gross as an agent.

 

[OVO16]

Oh yes because the agent wasn't the one who floated the "low ball" Bruins offer to Spitting Chiclets to make them look bad.

Please explain to me how Swayman deserves 9+ a year.

He's played 41, 37, 44 regular season games since being a full time player with Boston.

Boston is taking a risk with 8 mil to a guy that hasn't shown he can handle 55+ regular season starts as a true #1 in his career yet. Yes Ullmark obviously played a role in that as well, but it's a valid concern.

His direct comparison is Sorokin. They've been full-time guys for the same time frame. Sorokin has made 48 more starts in that period. Sorokin signed 8/66.

8/64 is more than fair for all involved.

Cap is going up. Signing 8 years away to a single contract is a huge deal.

In 3 years, a goalie worse than Swayman could either be making just as much, if not more, than swayman,

I dont blame him from trying to aime higher. He's a stud goalie and wants to be paid liek one for the next 8 years of his life

 

[Rob Brown]

$8M per for 8 years feels reasonable from the Bruins.

 

[ucanthanzalthetruth]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1840773503533941224

Crazy to me that Neely is airing all this out but also crazy to me that Swayman wants more than 8x8.

 

[JRull86]

Cap is going up. Signing 8 years away to a single contract is a huge deal.

In 3 years, a goalie worse than Swayman could either be making just as much, if not more, than swayman,

I dont blame him from trying to aime higher. He's a stud goalie and wants to be paid liek one for the next 8 years of his life

Could've said the same with Sorokin who even as a Bruins fan, I think is a better goalie. But that didn't seem to matter there. 8/66 stars this season, just like Swaymans would.

Agent playing a big role in this..same agent as Nylander during that hold out. Same agent as Krug, who was pissed at the Bruins for not giving him an offer.

 

[PoutineSp00nZ]

8x8 is more than fair for Swayman. If he doesn't sign that it makes you wonder if he's either totally out to lunch or just wants out of Boston for some strange reason.

 

[Leafshater67]

Swayman isn’t even proven as a full time starter. 7m short term would make the most sense. Really starting to care for him less and less as this drags out. The bruins taking him to arbitration really soured their relationship and he took that personal. This isn’t about money as much as it is sticking it to them I think and winning.

 

[OVO16]

Could've said the same with Sorokin who even as a Bruins fan, I think is a better goalie. But that didn't seem to matter there. 8/66 stars this season, just like Swaymans would.

Agent playing a big role in this..same agent as Nylander during that hold out. Same agent as Krug, who was pissed at the Bruins for not giving him an offer.

Thats a fair point but I think Swayman truly believes he's the best goalie in the league (if not top 3 for sure). He wants to get paid like one for the next 8 years.

Maybe he should take a shorter term contract and bet on himself again in like 4/5 years if 8years ends up being too much

 

[DekeyPete]

8 for 8 is more than he's worth. Like all goalies he will fade in three years.

 

[Absurdity]

Swayman isn’t even proven as a full time starter. 7m short term would make the most sense. Really starting to care for him less and less as this drags out. The bruins taking him to arbitration really soured their relationship and he took that personal. This isn’t about money as much as it is sticking it to them I think and winning.

Swayman took the Bruins to arbitration.

 

[SPV]

To be fair... Connor Hellebuyck is 31 years old and Sorokin is 29. Both of those deals, there's probably a bit of an underlying sense "this is going to turn rough towards the end".

Swayman is 25. If he's going to sign a deal that takes him to 33, he probably needs to get close to $10m, because it's going to be by far his biggest deal.

Sorokin & Hellebuyck also raise the challenge of why it probably doesn't make sense to sign anything 4 or 5 year deal.... because even if the next 4-5 years go great then when it comes time to negotiate another one, he's negotating a deal that he knows is likely to turn rough.

If Swayman thinks there's a team out there willing to give him a $9m+ 8-year bag, and to be honest, there probably is, there's a lot of teams who a deal like that would make a ton of sense for, then it is certainly in his best interest to do everything he can to get that.

If there are teams that want to give him 9 or 10 million, I’d be interested to see what they’d offer. A goalie, a young top 6 and a good pick or prospect and I might be intrigued.

Cam Neely just said Bruins have offered Swayman 64m (8x8). WOW!

That should be the final offer, sit him or shop him after that.

 

[Breakers]

26 years old
A 7th place vezina season
Never had an insane workload of 50 or more games like sorokin had. He has 42 games started in a season

$8x8 on the table

Gotta side with Boston management
That ridiculous that he wants more

 

[seanlinden]

Yeah that completely changes things. Now we know Swayman is the unreasonable one here. 8x8 is a hell of an offer and a perfect middle ground with each side giving up a million or so

With the way contracts hav ebeen going these days... it's really not all that unreasonable to reject it.

Swayman probably believes that he's going to be a top 5 goalie in the league within the next year or two... and that's not a completely outlandish thing to say.

Bobrovsky is 36. Hellebuyck is 31, Demko & Vasilevsky have all sorts of injury concerns.

$9.5m would put him in a tie for 2nd with Vasilevsky amongst the highest paid goalies in the league.
$9m would put him in 3rd.
$8.5m would put him in a tie for 4th with Hellebuyck.
$8.25m would put him in a tie for 5th with Sorokin.

Shesterkin is undoubtedly going to set a new high bar -- likely in the $11s within a year... bumping everyone on this list down a peg.

If you're talking an 8-year deal, $9m isn't unreasonable if you believe in Swayman. It's just not really the right thing for Boston to do.

 

[Jozay]

He deserves more

 

[JRull86]

Thats a fair point but I think Swayman truly believes he's the best goalie in the league (if not top 3 for sure). He wants to get paid like one for the next 8 years.

Maybe he should take a shorter term contract and bet on himself again in like 4/5 years if 8years ends up being too much

8 mil puts him at #5 in the league for goalie salary behind Bobrovsky, Vasi, Hellebyuck, and Sorokin though. Well top 5 if you remove Price from the equation since he's essentially retired.

What do the top 3 guys have in common?

3 cups, 5 Vezina trophies.

What do the top 4 all have in common?

Bonafide #1's.


Swayman being paid that kind of money for future potential, which we can all agree is legit, sounds more than fair to me.

 

[Static]

Boston confused why swayman is grinding them after taking him to arbitration last year.

 

[seanlinden]

Oh yes because the agent wasn't the one who floated the "low ball" Bruins offer to Spitting Chiclets to make them look bad.

Please explain to me how Swayman deserves 9+ a year.

He's played 41, 37, 44 regular season games since being a full time player with Boston.

Boston is taking a risk with 8 mil to a guy that hasn't shown he can handle 55+ regular season starts as a true #1 in his career yet. Yes Ullmark obviously played a role in that as well, but it's a valid concern.

His direct comparison is Sorokin. They've been full-time guys for the same time frame. Sorokin has made 48 more starts in that period. Sorokin signed 8/66.

8/64 is more than fair for all involved.

How does Dylan Guenther "deserve" $7.1m?? The guy has played 78 games over 2 seasons, nad put up a total of 24 goals and 50 points.

The answer is, he doesn't. You're paying for potential.

Sorokin & Swayman have been in the league for roughly the same time, but Swayman is 4 years younger than Sorokin. Sorokin's deal was "tempered" by the fact that it takes him to 36, whereas an 8-year deal for Swayman would take him to 33.

 

[Peasy]

Boston confused why swayman is grinding them after taking him to arbitration last year.

View attachment 911016

And gave him all the leverage in the world.

 

[Laus723]

26 years old
A 7th place vezina season
Never had an insane workload of 50 or more games

$8x8 on the table

Gotta side with Boston management
That ridiculous that he wants more

I agree with this, but I'm all for Bruin chaos.

 

[Absurdity]

Boston confused why swayman is grinding them after taking him to arbitration last year.

View attachment 911016

Again, Swayman is the one that filed for arbitration not the Bruins. It's on Gross for not preparing him for the arbitration process.

 

[Peasy]

Again, Swayman is the one that filed for arbitration not the Bruins. It's on Gross for not preparing him for the arbitration process.

And why would he file for arbitration in the first place? Probably because he didn't like what the Bruins were offering.

 

[Soundwave]

These deals are going to be contentious, I understand from the players side, they are being told (correctly) by their agents that the salary cap is due for an enormous increase in the coming years.

You can see this thread which basically illustrates, the cap should be over $100 million right now based on HRR (hockey related revenue) from right now:

The Cap Should Be Over $100 Million Right Now. How Is The NHL going to handle the inevitable post-COVID cap rise?

There's a good thread on Reddit posted by a user named tkecanuck341 that discusses the fact that at 6.43 billion in NHL revenue for 22-23, the NHL is millions behind what the cap actually should be based on a 50-50 HRR split: He goes into big detail on it, but more or less I believe he is...

forums.hfboards.com

It's hard to tell players to take massively less when any agent worth their salt can look at what HRR is and where it's going. The COVID debt was paid off by players last year, that means the NHL has a reckoning coming where they owe players massive cap increases in the next few years (far higher than the 5.3%-ish that it went up last year).

We're probably about $12 million below where the cap should be based on *current* revenue because of COVID. The players are owed that money.

I get it from Swayman and Shesterkin's POV ... you can't be accepting a deal that is only "good" against a 88 million cap. The 88 mill cap is an illusion, artificially lower than what it should be and that will rapidly rise soon.

 

[um]

In reality this should be a 6.5m contract mid term contract, especially compared to swaymans comparables. It's just unluck of the draw which team(s) run into the few really greedy players. As a gm, I'd probably consider moving on from players before contract talks come up if they were employing gross as an agent.

I kind of agree with you but Swayman could counter that they just did the mid term contract. Unfortunately the Bruins only did it for one season through arbitration.

Bruins weren’t ready to commit a year ago so they can’t be mad that Swayman isn’t being cool a year later.

 

[TheDoldrums]

Negotiating publicly like this is pretty rare