Jeremy Swayman ponders future with Bruins in new Amazon series 

With the start of the NHL regular season less than a week away, Jeremy Swayman has still not signed a new deal with the Boston Bruins. 

This week has brought about plenty of drama in Swayman’s ongoing contractual stalemate with Boston, especially after Cam Neely and Swayman’s agent — Lewis Gross — traded retorts over the latest offers put on the table. 

These already contentious talks have seemingly reached a boiling point, with Swayman reportedly pondering a trade over the final days of the preseason. 

But based on published quotes from NHL’s new Amazon Prime Video docuseries, it appears as though Swayman was bracing for an uncertain future in Boston long before things came to a head this week. 

Episode 3 of “FACEOFF: Inside the NHL” primarily focuses on Swayman, Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk, and the heated second-round bout between Boston and Florida in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. 

After coming up short in six games to the eventual Stanley Cup champions, Swayman expressed some doubt about what awaited him as a restricted free agent during the summer. 

“I mean, I don’t want it to end,” Swayman said on the show, per ESPN. “[This] could be the last time I wear a Bruins jersey. I know I’m going to do everything in my power to be a Bruin for a long time. As a kid growing up in Alaska, this was in my wildest [expletive] dreams.

“I never want it to end. I’m just so grateful that the sun’s going to rise tomorrow and there’s another opportunity to get better.”

With the offseason yet to begin in earnest at the time of Swayman’s comments, there was some uncertainty about what the plan was for Boston in net during the 2024-25 campaign.

Ultimately, the Bruins decided to trade veteran Linus Ullmark to the Senators — seemingly clearing a path for Boston to anoint Swayman as its new franchise netminder.

But those plans have been halted as both the Bruins and Swayman’s camp continue to come up short in bridging the gap on contract talks. 

Previous heated offseason exchanges between the Bruins and Swayman might play a part in the current sour sentiment hovering over these talks.

The 25-year-old goalie has been outspoken over the past year about how much he did not enjoy Boston’s critical comments during a July 30, 2023 arbitration hearing that he elected to hold last offseason. It fueled him throughout the 2023-24 campaign. 

“When you go into that room, you don’t say a word,” Swayman said. “My arbitrator started first, he said all of these great things. The arbitrator on their side, their job is to help the management side and to rip players, and hearing that you’re not worthy of what you think you’re worthy of, that was hard to hear.

“You don’t forget what was said. I wrote ‘em down and I looked at ‘em the other day and I had a couple of checkmarks. My biggest knock was how I wasn’t trustworthy in the playoffs. Check.”

Swayman did deliver this spring in his first legitimate run as a No. 1 goalie in the playoffs, sporting a .933 save percentage over 12 starts. 

As Swayman and his agent assess their next steps, it remains to be seen if the young goalie will be back in net for Boston’s next playoff run in April 2025.