The Bruins are wisely keeping all their options open in goal

Author Ty Anderson

July 30th, 2021 6:46 AM

The Bruins did more than bring in a veteran to ‘compete’ with Jeremy Swayman and Daniel Vladar.

If that was the plan, the Bruins likely would have stolen the Sabres’ plan and signed veteran Craig Anderson to a one-year deal for the league minimum. Instead, Bruins general manager Don Sweeney stole the Sabres’ starting goaltender, signing Linus Ullmark to a four-year, $20 million contract. The deal made Ullmark the 12th-highest paid goalie in the league, and after a Vladar trade, it locked the Bruins into an Ullmark-Swayman tandem to begin the 2021-22 season.

Still, the Bruins are talking openly about a Tuukka Rask return when the 34-year-old is fully recovered from hip surgery.

Or, as I can tell you in not so many words, they’re keeping all of their options open. Which, when you consider what they just did in regards to their crease and both its present and future, is perhaps their only real course of action.

There’s plenty of reasons to buy in on Ullmark.

At 6-foot-4, Ullmark fits the recent trend of gigantic goalies who take up a comically large portion of the net. And the metrics spoke of a potentially elite goaltender wasting away behind the worst professional hockey team (and perhaps the worst organization) of the modern era. Among goaltenders with at least 900 minutes of five-on-five play last year, Ullmark ranked fourth in five-on-five save percentage (.937). The names directly below him? 2021 Stanley Cup winner Andrei Vasilevskiy and 2021 Vezina Trophy winner Marc-Andre Fleury. Expand it over the last three seasons and Ullmark ranks 11th in save percentage (.926), 12th in goals saved above average (17.02), and 16th in high-danger save percentage (.831) among the group of 37 goaltenders with at least 4,000 minutes of five-on-five hockey under their blades.

“He’s big, he stops a lot of pucks way above expected, especially in five-on-five situations,” Sweeney acknowledged. “Both our goalie coaches in Bob [Essensa] and Mike [Dunham] broke down where there might be some deficiencies in Linus’s game. There are a few than a lot of goaltenders. Then the PK side of things is an area we’re going to shore up with him and how we kill, and address some of those things. But overall, he’s in the prime of his career, he’s had a lot of experience.”

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  But the Bruins are also aware of the risks that come with handing the 27-year-old a big ol' bag of money. 
  
  Since March 2018, Ullmark has missed 54 games due to various injuries. (The Bruins, for what it's worth, believe they can keep Ullmark upright by working on his conditioning and getting him in their 'more structured' system.) And whether it's been because of injury or by design, Ullmark has also yet to play more than 37 games in an NHL season. He's also never participated in a Stanley Cup Playoff contest, but that's obviously more of a Buffalo problem than an Ullmark problem.
  
  There's risk attached to all of that. But that's why the Bruins are paying Ullmark $5 million and not $7 million, and why they're stapling him to Swayman, who was the best goaltender in the NHL over the course of his 10-game 2021 season by way of a .945 save percentage, to begin the 2021-22 season. 

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  And the idea that Swayman is going to be blocked by Ullmark because of his salary is silly.
  
  First of all, $5 million for one goaltender is highly manageable. Especially when you factor in the team control aspect of Swayman's contract. Assuming there's a bridge deal involved (a near certainty unless this .945 you saw down the stretch is the reality of his game), the Bruins are years away from a goaltending tandem that'll cost 'em eight figures, and if it arrives sooner than that, it's for all the right reasons and you'll be happy that Swayman's elevated himself to that level.
  
  That concept also isn't something completely foreign to the Bruins, who paid almost $10 million for the first two years of the Rask-Halak tandem. The Canadiens just ran to the Stanley Cup Final while paying over $13 million in net. The Golden Knights just broke up the expensive-but-effective Fleury and Robin Lehner one-two. And the cap isn't going to stay flat forever, especially with that ESPN and Turner money set to truly kick in before you know it. It's entirely possible that $5 million becomes the new norm for a 40-game 1A/1B by the third year of Ullmark's deal. 
  
  It's also silly to believe that Swayman has already established himself as a piece of your team that's above a potential roadblock or challenger. 

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  The scary question that nobody wants to answer — and one that nobody knows if they actually can answer right now, to be honest — is whether or not Swayman is actually as good as we think. It's a question I've actually hated entertaining because you ask it and people think you're automatically discrediting a player's accomplishments, but it was 10 games. 10 games. Andrew Hammond had a larger sample size. Martin Jones and Scott Darling cashed in on longer, more sustained pushes and never delivered. Jordan Binnington took the Blues to the Cup and has posted the league's worst playoff save percentage since (.875) among the group of 26 goalies with at least six postseason appearances over the last two seasons.
  
  As good as Swayman's 10 games were, he's not above competition. And Ullmark is legit competition. More so than Vladar was going to be if the Bruins rolled into the new season with their least experienced duo in net since 2005's Andrew Raycroft and Hannu Toivonen combination, which was ultimately beat out for starts by minor-league journeyman Tim Thomas. Ullmark is also a better running mate for Swayman than [insert any half-price veteran option signed or still available here] was ever going to be for a playoff, win-now team, as the Bruins' late-season rotation in net proved when Swayman won the gig over Halak.
  
  Still, the Ullmark-Swayman grouping is one that's not proven. And let's say that everything goes to hell.
  
  Let's say that Ullmark battles injuries like he has over the last three years or that he's not delivering on his end of the $20 million bargain. And let's say that Swayman isn't quite ready for full-time NHL work and that the book is out on him and shooters have figured out the necessary adjustments to make on him thanks to some expanded video scouting finally available.
  
  Forget both. Let's just say that one of these things happen.
  
  You're going to tell me that the Bruins wouldn't be smart to use of their options available? Especially when considering the resume of the top option on Sweeney's list: Tuukka Rask. PUH-LEASE.
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  Currently recovering from surgery to repair a torn hip, Rask has made it clear that this is the only place he wants to play. With no plans of uprooting his family, it's Boston or retirement for the 34-year-old Rask. That saves you money on top of the money you're saving when signing a guy to play half a season and in a potentially reduced role. And while he remains perhaps the most polarizing athlete in town — this time for playing hurt, you know, one of the things his detractors have crucified him for not doing in the past — you couldn't argue with the results until Rask's body crumbled in the later stages of the second round.
  
  And Rask would allow the Bruins to follow through with an option that was likely the Bruins' No. 1 plan before it was revealed that Rask needed an invasive surgery, and that's giving Swayman a real run in a real AHL season.
  
  "Jeremy is in a position where we have flexibility," Sweeney said of his lone goaltender with limitless, waiver-free shuttles between Boston and Providence. "He could be the best goaltender, and then you feel like not a lot of teams juggle with three, but you have opportunity if you needed to send Jeremy down and get to the playoffs and play the best goaltender. Ultimately, you’d have, in Linus and Tuukka in that case, as you spelled it, that’s hypothetical. But I think we’re prepared in any way to go."
  
  The Bruins want to use these opening three months and change without Rask to assess Ullmark's capabilities as a legit piece on a contender and see if Swayman is truly ready for the bright lights. But they're also not dummying themselves into thinking two goaltenders is all you might need, especially after last year and what's been a consistent theme of this team running out of capable bodies when they need 'em the most.
  
  "I see it like having extremely good goaltending at that point in time," Sweeney said of re-adding Rask to the mix. "What if you have an injury to somebody else? I’m knocking on wood here, obviously, you’re just trying to be prepared.
  
  "When you’re trying to be a competitive team, you have to have depth. We felt that the last two playoffs, and we came up short. Now we’re trying to make sure that we’ve got the most competitive team we can, and identify if we have some needs going forward that we may have to have some changes as well."
  
  In the simplest terms, the Bruins are wisely keeping all of their options — and perhaps most importantly, their best available option — open.
  
  As they absolutely should. Even with their Opening Night tandem set. Because this team has goals that far exceed any Opening Night buzz.

Ty Anderson is a writer and columnist for 985TheSportsHub.com. Any opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of 98.5 The Sports Hub, Beasley Media Group, or any subsidiaries. Yell at him on Twitter: @_TyAnderson.

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Author Ty Anderson

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2021 bruins offseason,don sweeney,Jeremy Swayman,Linus Ullmark,Tuukka Rask