The Boston Bruins pride themselves on their elite goalie tandem of Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman. Which will they turn to for Game 1 against the Toronto Maple Leafs? And will that be the same player for Game 2 and beyond?
BRIGHTON, Mass. – The biggest question(s) leading up to the Boston Bruins’ postseason will finally be answered on Saturday: Who gets the net in Game 1? And will the 50/50 rotation continue in the playoffs?
It’s no secret that the Bruins’ biggest strength is their goalie tandem of Jeremy Swayman and Linus Ullmark. Only problem: you can only play one at a time. Ullmark won the Vezina Trophy last season, and Swayman was an All-Star this year. The two have rotated starts with remarkably similar numbers, leaving the Bruins with an important decision to make.
According to Bruins coach Jim Montgomery, that decision has already been made. He just won’t share until he has to, which will likely be when the team skates out for warmups on Saturday night.
“We got two great goaltenders,” Montgomery said on Friday. “Our entire group is very comfortable with either one, and you know, performance is gonna dictate a lot on how we move forward.”
As far as forecasting which will get the Game 1 start, here’s how the two stack up:
Swayman before All-Star Break: .924 SV%, 2.30 GAA, 16-3-7 record, 3 shutouts
Ullmark before All-Star Break: .913 SV%, 2.78 GAA, 15-6-2 record, 0 shutouts
Swayman after AS Break: .903 SV%, 2.87 GAA, 9-7-1 record, 0 shutouts
Ullmark after AS Break: .917 SV%, 2.27 GAA, 7-4-5 record, 2 shutouts
Swayman vs. TOR: 0.959 SV%, 1.30 GAA in 3 games (185:00)
Ullmark vs. TOR: 0.925 SV%, 2.77 GAA in 1 game (64:52)
Clearly, Ullmark has been the better goalie since the All-Star Break, but the Bruins lost more games than they won in that span (albeit a good chunk after regulation).
Swayman, on the other hand, was lights out against the Maple Leafs this season, which includes two games in early March. Ullmark also had a solid performance in his lone start against Toronto, but it’s a smaller sample size than Swayman.
Montgomery has said multiple times late in the season that players who perform the best will stay in the lineup, so based on pure speculation, I personally believe it will be Ullmark leading the team in Game 1. That said, I would expect him – or Swayman, if that's who they go with instead – to have a much shorter leash than last season, when Ullmark played six games before Swayman came in for Game 7 against the Florida Panthers.
That leads to the other question: Will the rotation continue?
Both Montgomery and general manager Don Sweeney have expressed an openness to the unorthodox playoff rotation and they claim to have a plan in place, which they’re holding close to the vest. When asked about the details of the plan, Sweeney simply replied: “That is not my job [to disclose].” When Montgomery was asked the next day, he more or less deferred to Sweeney’s answer.
They both expressed that performance and results will dictate how they proceed, so whatever the plan happens to be, it sounds like it could be scrapped quickly depending on how things play out.
“Our goalies know what the plan is,” Sweeney said on Thursday. “They know what their strengths are for our hockey club and how much we rely on them. And performance and results will dictate some of this. But we know what the plan is going in and so do they, and we’re comfortable with it.”
Regardless of who starts in Game 1, I would be surprised if that same player starts each of the first three games of the series. Barring two near-perfect performances that would make it impossible to take him out, I would expect the non-Game 1 starter to see the ice by Game 3, if not earlier.
The team wants to avoid what happened last year – sitting Swayman for too long – and even if the second starter performs worse than the first, the two have shared the net for long enough where I don’t think either’s confidence would be knocked if they gave up the net for one game and got it back by the next.
Beyond that, it’s tough to say. Traditionally, teams continue to roll with the hot hand. But traditionally, teams have never quite had this specific goaltending situation. A rotation could be beneficial in keeping each player fresh, but that only really works if both play equally well, or close to it.
Both goalies want to play, that much is obvious.
“If I say I don’t want the net, I should probably just retire,” Ullmark said in early April.
No matter which player ends up starting Game 1, the conversation will be far from over.
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