Bruins’ Defenseman Believes Jeremy Swayman And Linus Ullmark Will Thrive In New Setups after agreement reached
The Boston Bruins have the grand majority of their roster locked up, including newcomer forward Elias Lindholm and defenseman Nikita Zadorov.
But at least one Bruins veteran – blueliner Brandon Carlo – can empathize with current starting goalie Jeremy Swayman as he deals with a contract showdown that’s keeping him on the sidelines as training camp is about to open. Carlo had his own battle with the Bruins as an RFA in the fall of 2019, but he eventually signed a two-year, $5.7-million deal and hasn’t had any contractual issues since then. “I feel like in Boston just a couple of years ago, I was late to camp as well,” Carlo told THN.com’s Michael Traikos at the NHL and NHL Players’ Association’s Player Media Tour in Las Vegas last week. “And (fellow Bruins D-man) Charlie McAvoy, he missed a couple of days of camp. Those things just kind of sort themselves out. I feel like we have a lot of faith within our organization and our management to get the right deal done.
“It’s obviously a balance of going back and forth, but I’ve had some conversations with Swayman, and he seems pretty encouraged and in a good mindset with it all. So as long as he’s feeling OK mentally, that’s all we really care about.” The 27-year-old Carlo is entering his ninth NHL season. In that time, he’s seen a number of different goaltending tandems with the Bruins, including Tuuka Rask and Anton Khudobin and Rask and Jaroslav Halak. In the past couple of years, the duo of Swayman and Linus Ullmark has had a great deal of success, including winning the William M. Jennings Trophy in 2022-23 as the league’s netminder teammates with the fewest goals allowed.
That tandem was broken up this summer when Boston dealt Ullmark to the Ottawa Senators in exchange for new netminding understudy Joonas Korpisalo. While that duo is now at an end, Carlo raved about Ullmark and Swayman’s unique relationship. “It was pretty incredible,” Carlo said of the Ullmark and Swayman tandem. “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that comfort level between two guys with the aspect of just supporting each other fully.
And it was really special for me being on the defensive aspect, because when one of them wasn’t playing they’d be sitting right there next to us and their interaction during the TV timeouts and what-not would really like decompress me in the aspect where I wouldn’t be as nervous and and I would be a little bit more calm, just because they were having fun and enjoying the process. I’ve learned a lot from both of them.” Ultimately, Carlo has to adjust to Swayman – whenever he does sign a contract and return to action – as well as Korpisalo between the pipes this season. But Carlo has a lot of faith that Swayman can be a difference-maker once again this season. Swayman is considered an elite goalie, but he’s going to be challenged in a different manner this year. Carlo believes Swayman is mature enough to handle the new goaltending and that he and Ullmark are up to their new challenges.
