{"id":133774,"date":"2025-09-05T03:17:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T03:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/133774\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T03:17:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T03:17:09","slug":"jeremy-swayman-feels-like-a-completely-different-human-being","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/133774\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeremy Swayman feels like a \u2018completely different human being\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBruins\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t“If I didn’t have that experience, I probably wouldn’t understand the importance of it.”<\/p>\n

\"The
\n\tJeremy Swayman is entering the 2025-26 season with no contract issues looming. John Tlumacki\/Boston Globe\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBy Conor Ryan<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSeptember 4, 2025 | 3:13 PM\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

4 minutes to read<\/p>\n

A year ago, Jeremy Swayman was bracing for the most consequential season of his NHL career.<\/p>\n

Fresh off of carrying Boston into the second round of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs, the young netminder was expected to assume an even greater role as Boston\u2019s top goalie in 2024-25 \u2014 especially with the team dealing Linus Ullmark to Ottawa during the summer.<\/p>\n

With more reps on the horizon as the team\u2019s unquestioned starter, Swayman needed all of the reps he could get during Boston\u2019s three-week training camp at Warrior Ice Arena.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But when camp officially commenced in Brighton, Swayman was down the street at Boston University\u2019s Agganis Arena to maintain his conditioning.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With no contract struck between the Bruins and the restricted free agent, Swayman wasn\u2019t a participant during camp as his representatives and the franchise struggled to bridge the gap on a new deal.<\/p>\n

By the time Swayman finally put pen to paper on an eight-year, $66 million contract on Oct. 6,<\/a> the toll of a contentious contract dispute was evident.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Bruins finally had their top goalie back in the fold. But both training camp and a full preseason slate had passed them all by.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After speaking with the media upon inking his new contract, Swayman had to hop on a plane down to Florida \u2014 given that Boston\u2019s season opener was scheduled just two days later against the Panthers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Be it the lack of training-camp reps, the erosion of Boston\u2019s rigid defensive structure in front of him, or Swayman\u2019s own regression in net, the 2024-25 season was a painful one for Swayman.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But after sporting the worst save percentage of his career last winter (.892), Swayman feels as though the clean slate offered by a new training camp \u2014 one that he will be able to participate in fully \u2014 will allow him to put last year\u2019s struggles in the rearview mirror.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a completely different human being,\u201d Swayman said Thursday when asked of his mindset a year removed from last year\u2019s contract strife. \u201cAnd that\u2019s a testament to the experience that I gained throughout my career to this point. And I\u2019m so grateful for that \u2014 the ups and downs of it all. And standing here, Jeremy Swayman is in a great spot, and I\u2019m really excited about that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Swayman was one of over 30 Bruins players and prospects who took the ice for Thursday\u2019s captains practice \u2014 an early precursor to the club\u2019s preseason ramp-up with training camp still a few weeks away.<\/p>\n

A lot will fall on Swayman\u2019s shoulders once again this season if a retooling Bruins roster has any shot of playing meaningful hockey this spring.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With questions abound about Boston\u2019s scoring depth outside of stalwarts like David Pastrnak, Swayman will likely be tasked with keeping the Bruins off the ropes on nights where they don\u2019t have the means offensively to generate some much-needed breathing room.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was an expectation that eluded Swayman last season. The 26-year-old goalie struggled to find a groove \u2014 ranking 63rd out of 73 qualified goalies (minimum of 10 games played) with a -9.1 goals saved above expected rate (per MoneyPuck)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Swayman\u2019s dip in play stood in stark contrast to the poised play he had displayed over his first four seasons in the NHL ranks (.919 save percentage from 2020-24).\u00a0<\/p>\n

As such, Swayman said he overhauled his offseason approach in order to steel himself for another year as Boston\u2019s No. 1 option between the pipes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything,\u201d Swayman declared when asked what he changed this offseason. \u201cIt\u2019s been a great summer for that alone. Just focusing on what I can improve on from my experience. \u2026 I was on the ice a lot.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that was something I was really looking forward to \u2014 just getting back to the rhythm of things. And right when I got back from [IIHF World Championships], it was pretty much a steady schedule on the ice and really working on my technique, my body, and making sure I\u2019m in a great position, come right now, to be at the top of my game and competing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

A strong showing with Team USA at Worlds<\/a> gave Swayman the added lift he needed this summer \u2014 helping the U.S. win its first gold medal in the international tournament in 92 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Swayman went 7-0 during the tournament while sporting a .921 save percentage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat tournament for me, personally, was a great cap to a year that I wanted better from and to just let it all go and just play my game again, I found a lot,\u201d Swayman noted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Swayman opted to not look too far ahead when fielding questions about the expectations placed on a Bruins team looking to build itself back up as a playoff club.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For now, Swayman is looking forward to rejoining his teammates on the ice this fall \u2014 an opportunity that he doesn\u2019t take for granted after last year\u2019s events.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an extremely important time of the year. \u2026\u00a0 If I didn\u2019t have that experience, I probably wouldn\u2019t understand the importance of it,\u201d Swayman said of training camp. \u201cSo yeah, it\u2019s definitely allowed me to prepare a little bit differently come training camp time and looking forward to it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s something that I really rallied behind is being in this locker room and just [exuding] love to everyone, because I missed them at this time of year last year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\"Profile\t<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Conor Ryan is a staff writer covering the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox for Boston.com, a role he has held since 2023.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for the Today newsletter<\/p>\n

Get everything you need to know to start your day, delivered right to your inbox every morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bruins “If I didn’t have that experience, I probably wouldn’t understand the importance of it.” Jeremy Swayman is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-133774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}