Boston Bruins coach Jim Montgomery took out Jeremy Swayman for Linus Ullmark midway through Boston’s 5-2 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Monday, the first time the Bruins have made an in-game swap this season. On Wednesday, both sides addressed the change.
The Boston Bruins boast the best goaltending tandem in the NHL, so it’s not common for Linus Ullmark or Jeremy Swayman to get replaced midgame.
However, it happened 6:14 into the second period of Monday’s 5-2 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets, less than a minute after the Blue Jackets took a 2-0 lead. There are a handful of situations in which you’d expect a goaltender to get yanked, but just a two-goal deficit with more than half the game left to play is not one of them.
“It was just a decision I made to try and slow the game down, and also let the entire team know that we need to pick it up,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery told reporters after Monday’s game.
Montgomery said Swayman asked him why he made the decision. His response: “We’ll discuss it tomorrow.”
It can be easy to make something out of nothing, especially in the midst of a losing skid, but Swayman and Co. were all business two days later at Warrior Ice Arena.
“He’s our head coach and we trust everything that he’s gonna do,” Swayman said. “I thought we did get a jump, a little bit, and whatever it takes for the team to win. And I know I’m going to take the positives and roll with it and move forward like I always do.
“It wasn’t a jawing back or anything like that. It was just a communication thing, and we talked about it, and we’re completely good.”
Swayman allowed two goals on 19 shots on Monday. The first was a tight-angle shot from Dmitri Voronkov that slipped in off Swayman’s glove, and the second got through from long-range when Voronkov screened him from Ivan Provorov.
The Blue Jackets broke through to take a 3-0 lead just over 10 minutes after Swayman was pulled, and they never looked back, handing Boston its third consecutive loss.
“We knew we weren’t a 14-1-3 team, that’s just being honest,” Montgomery said on Wednesday. “We’re also not a team that gives up 17 goals in three games. We got to get back to who we are, and we got to continue to grow as a team throughout the year.”
Swayman won’t have to wait long for his ‘redemption,’ as he will start on Thursday against the San Jose Sharks. Boston defeated the Sharks 3-1 on Oct. 19, just its third game of the season. Ullmark started that game, making 26 saves, and on Thursday Swayman will get the chance to regroup against the team with the league’s worst record (5-15-2).
“Definitely excited to get another whack at it,” Swayman said. “It’s a long season. We roll day by day. Yesterday’s in the past, and that’s what our culture is, that’s what our mindset is, and we got two points on the line tomorrow and that’s all we care about.”