Jeremy Swayman (literally) saves Bruins from continuing ugly trend in win over Wild
Jeremy Swayman earned his third shutout of the season over the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday night, and he did it with a little extra flair.
Swayman came up with an extremely well-timed save during the second period of the Bruins’ 3-0 win at TD Garden, when he made an impressive glove stop on Wild forward Matt Boldy. The goaltender wasn’t about to let the Massachusetts kid beat him in his home state.
But the save, despite being a tremendous play on its own, carried extra weight. It came just one minute and 10 seconds after Trent Frederic had sniped one past Marc-Andre Fleury to give the Bruins a 2-0 lead. It prevented the Bruins from repeating what’s been a disturbing theme of the season so far, which is allowing a goal within two minutes of scoring one.
According to data collected by 98.5 The Sports Hub’s own Ty Anderson (listen to him and me on the Sports Hub Underground, pretty please), we know that the Bruins have allowed a goal less than two minutes of scoring their own goal 13 times this season, three times in the same game. But for that to happen in 10 of 55 games overall is still scary.
Swayman himself actually seemed to credit Frederic for scoring prior to the save, inspiring the team to continue on a positive roll.
“It goes to show how momentum can really drive a group in the right direction,” Swayman said. “Fleury’s making great saves, but for Freddy to come out and put it in the back of the net … it really brings our group to the next level. We really just carried that momentum shift after shift and it came in waves.”
But for Swayman to buck the trend of giving goals back was a nice piece of well-timed heroics, as the guys in front of him had been hemmed in and scrambling to stop the pressure.
“That was the shift when they were caught in our zone for a little while there,” said head coach Joe Sacco, when asked about Swayman’s big save. “We did a decent job keeping most of it to the outside, but they did end up with the one quick look there with [Boldy] in the slot. Obviously that changes the game a little bit for us. We were able to keep that lead that we had. [Swayman] made a couple of those saves here tonight.”
It’s unsurprising that when Swayman plays at a high level, and David Pastrnak (assist) and Charlie McAvoy (goal) also play their best hockey, the Bruins play their best as a team. That’s their modern core, their building blocks. Not likely they’re trade chips, despite what some may wish. Any retooling or improvement is going to come around them.
And any wins or success going forward will come from their own individual successes. It has to.
Matt Dolloff is a writer and digital content producer for 98.5 The Sports Hub. Read all of his articles here.