Bruins’ Zadorov squashes talk of unrest in room following comments on Jeremy Swayman
It’s been a season to forget for the Bruins.
And after Sunday’s blowout loss to the Kings, it almost felt like a civil war was brewing.
In a game headlined by the struggles of both Jeremy Swayman (seven goals on 23 shots) and the team in front of him (loose defensive coverage and just 13 shots on goal), Swayman did his part to provide some entertainment by venturing out to center ice in an attempt to challenge the Kings’ Darcy Kuemper in what would’ve been the first goalie fight involving a Bruins netminder since 2011. After the game, Swayman talked about it being something he felt he had to do in defense of teammate Marat Khusnutdinov, and noted that nobody would get away with touching someone in black and gold.
Not everybody seemed to agree with that assessment. Namely B’s defenseman Nikita Zadorov, who provided some painfully honest answers when asked about it by The Athletic’s Fluto Shinzawa.
“Is that it is?” Zadorov said when asked if the team appreciated Swayman sticking up for his teammates. Shinzawa responded with a “it looked like it,” to which Zadorov said, “I don’t know. No comment.”
Ouch.
But on Tuesday, Zadorov did his part to provide additional context to the comments, which were understandably made in the heat of the moment of a frustrating loss.
“When you ask a question like this after a 7-2 loss, the players are frustrated [and] obviously, at the time, I was frustrated,” Zadorov said. “And whatever I said, it wasn’t towards Sway. I didn’t expect that question from you. And sometimes you’ve got to understand the situation we’re at. You’re pissed after the game. I was basically saying, [I’m] trying to stay away from finding positives, there were a lot of negatives in our game. Obviously, we appreciate guys in the room stepping in for each other.
“That’s the culture that was here before I came here and I’m trying to follow it.”
Zadorov noted that while the comments blew up online, the narratives made up within it from people online throwing in their opinion on the matter were “made up,” and called it a ‘media training’ for himself in regards to knowing what to say and when to say it.
“It wasn’t even thinking, like, [a] comment towards Swayman or anything like that,” Zadorov said. “It was just taken out of context. Obviously, he’s a huge part of our team. He’s signed for eight years, and I’m here for the next five years. So we’re going to be together for a long time.”
