{"id":573040,"date":"2026-03-29T23:38:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T23:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/573040\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T23:38:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T23:38:09","slug":"bruins-goalie-jeremy-swayman-starts-on-back-to-back-nights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/573040\/","title":{"rendered":"Bruins goalie Jeremy Swayman starts on back-to-back nights"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThere\u2019s a few reasons,\u201d said coach Marco Strum prior to puck drop about his decision to go with Swayman immediately after Saturday\u2019s 6-3 win over the Wild<\/a>. \u201cFirst of all he\u2019s been outstanding; I think he is one of the best goalies in the league right now.\u00a0He had three days of rest (prior to Saturday).\u00a0He played unbelievable and it\u2019s another big one [Sunday night]. <\/p>\n

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\u201cWe feel really good and confident he can bring us another two points here.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Strum, Swayman \u201cdidn\u2019t expect anything less\u201d when apprised he would be Sunday\u2019s starter.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s him; he\u2019s a competitive guy and he wants the big moments.\u201d added Sturm.\u00a0\u201cI feel, too, that all season long we gave him big moments and he was great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Swayman entered the 5 p.m. matinee at TD Garden with a 29-15-4 record, representing his career high for wins. Since returning from Milan, where he helped Team USA to the Olympic gold medal, he was 7-3-1 prior to Sunday\u2019s start.<\/p>\n

After Sunday, the Bruins have eight games left in their regular season.\u00a0Might Sturm make the 27-year-old former UMaine Black Bear his go-to guy in net for the duration?<\/p>\n

\u201cYeahhhhh \u2026 let\u2019s get through today,\u201d said a pensive Sturm. \u201cI\u2019m not a big picture guy; I\u2019m a small picture guy. Today\u2019s today, and tomorrow we focus on the next \u2026 You have something in mind, I feel like, and then sometimes things change quickly, and so we go from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The move to go to Swayman again here denied Joonas Korpisalo, the winner Thursday night in Buffalo<\/a>, the chance to go up against his former Columbus teammates. Korpisalo went 87-78-24 during an eight-year run with the Jackets, who drafted him in the third round (62nd overall) in 2012.<\/p>\n

\"MaxMax Lundgren backstopped Merrimack to its Cinderella-like Hockey East tournament title at TD Garden and an NCAA Tournament berth. Barry Chin\/Globe Staff<\/p>\n

Another goalie in the fold<\/p>\n

Hours before puck drop, the Bruins bricked up their goalie position a little more by signing Merrimack College stopper Max Lundgren, an undrafted free agent, to a one-year entry level contract.<\/p>\n

The club\u2019s media release did not specify where Lundgren would start his professional journey. The likely landing spot would be AHL Providence, where the P-Bruins are led in net by Michael DiPietro, the former Canucks draft pick who has evolved the last couple of seasons into the organization\u2019s goalie-in-waiting.<\/p>\n

The Swedish-born Lundgren, 23, would have been a rising junior had he returned to the North Andover campus in the fall.\u00a0His deal with the Bruins would carry a cap hit of $952,500 at the NHL level. Per puckpedia.com<\/a>, it\u2019s a standard two-way contract, which pays him $850,000 if assigned to the minor pros, be it the AHL or ECHL.<\/p>\n

The 6-foot, 5-inch, 230-pounder was not drafted as an 18-year old when playing in Sweden, and then played a year with USHL Des Moines in 2022-23 prior to joining the Warriors after sitting out the 2023-24 season.<\/p>\n

Lundgren made 39 appearances\u00a0this Hockey East campaign, posting a 21-16-2 record with a 2.55 goals\u2011against average and a .920 save percentage. He led all NCAA netminders in saves (1,134) and also led Hockey East goaltenders in wins \u2014 backstopping the Warriors to the school\u2019s first Hockey East tournament title<\/a> where he was named tourney MVP.<\/p>\n

Over two NCAA seasons, he amassed an overall record of 29\u201129\u20112 with a 2.67 goals-against and a .916 save percentage.<\/p>\n

Banged-up Lohrei gets a rest<\/p>\n

Defenseman Mason Lohrei got Sunday off due to a nagging upper-body injury.\u00a0Henri Jokiharju, often scratched since he returned from the Olympics, drew back into the blue line corps.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been going on for a while,\u201d said Strum of Lohrei\u2019s ailment. \u201cIt just got worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sturm said he does not anticipate Lohrei being sidelined too long.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been playing really good,\u201d noted the coach. \u201cHe just wasn\u2019t 100 percent. It\u2019s not something long, just day-by-day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jokiharju last played in Tuesday\u2019s loss to the Leafs<\/a>, what was only his fourth game since play resumed after the Games.<\/p>\n

Some goals on the farm<\/p>\n

Top Bruins prospect James Hagens, who just a week ago signed an amateur tryout contract out of Boston College, scored his first goal as a pro Saturday night \u2014 knocking home a power-play strike in Providence\u2019s 6-4 win over Bridgeport. <\/p>\n

It was Hagens\u2019\u00a0second game with Providence and his first point since leaving the Heights.<\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s win was paced by a Riley Tufte hat trick.\u00a0Tufte, 27, increased his line to 31-22-53 in what has been his most productive season as a pro.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

A first-round draft pick (No. 25) by the Stars 10 years ago, the 6-foot, 6-inch Tufte, now 27, has seen only 10 games (1-0\u20131) of NHL action since signing with the Bruins as a free agent in July 2024.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI got to know him when he was in [AHL] Colorado and I was in [AHL] Ontario (coach the Reign),\u201d said Sturm when asked if Tufte could be close to a call-up to the varsity. \u201cHe\u2019s very noticeable and not just because of his size.\u00a0He can score. The guys love him in Providence. I feel like every time he was up he did a really good job, so hopefully he\u2019s going to stick around with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Big Russian, bigger shot<\/p>\n

Nikita Zadorov, fresh off the\u00a0bench midway through the first period, skated into a one-time slapper that rang a post \u2014 one of four Bruin shots that caught iron in the Saturday\u2019s win over the Wild.\u00a0Zadorov\u2019s shot also carried the distinction of being the hardest blast yet in this NHL season. <\/p>\n

It was clocked at Bonnieville-Salt-Flats-worthy 103.90 miles per hour, a tick better than the 103.51 m.p.h. blast earlier this season by Ottawa defenseman Tyler Kleven.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s a heavy hitter <\/p>\n

As of Sunday morning, Bruins winger Tanner Jeannot ranked 13th in the NHL in hits (214), after the 28-year-old recorded three smacks in Saturday\u2019s win. Wild center Yakov Trenin landed four hits and increased his league-leading total to 371, a career high for the Russian born center \u2026 The Bruins departed Columbus for their flight back home and will face the Stars Tuesday night at the Garden, prior to embarking on a four-game swing that begins Thursday night in Sunrise, Fla., against the Panthers. The following stops will be to Tampa, Philadelphia, and North Carolina for the Eastern Conference-best Hurricanes \u2026 If the Bruins clinch a playoff spot, it\u2019s all but guaranteed they\u2019ll open Round 1 on the road, most likely on Friday, April 17.<\/p>\n

Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at kevin.dupont@globe.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThere\u2019s a few reasons,\u201d said coach Marco Strum prior to puck drop about his decision to go with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573041,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,28972,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-573040","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-bruins","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}