That demon life has got me in its Sway, man
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Looks like Cam lied twice yesterday though, right? The offer wasn’t actually $64M, and, much more importantly, an $8.5M demand is not resetting the market. That’s materially different than what Swayman has done that I’ve seen—though I certainly might have missed something.
Is it not though? A top 5 AAV for an RFA who’s never been a true #1 goalie could certainly be seen as such.
Isn't the reason that he's never been a true #1 goalie yet is because Boston didn't give him the opportunity to be? I mean, a team suppressing a guy's value and then trying to cash in on it by locking him in at $6.5 for eight years or whatever is pretty ruthless. Just business. Now that they're close to 8 it'll get done, but I don't blame Swayman at all for standing his ground. Just business.
Shame that he's getting so much abuse in the local media for it. His demands don't seem unreasonable.
I think what the Bruins have offered is completely fair. 8 years, $62.4 million for someone with his experience is more than reasonable. If Swayman is unwilling to budge off of $8.5 million per year, that's on him. Negotiations are give and take situations. Neither side gets exactly what they want. When they decided not to go to arbitration, it was a show of good faith by the Bruins because of how Swayman did not like how that process went last year. Now he's gone all hardo this time around. It feels like 8x8 should get this done, but who knows.
If the Bruins don't get this guy in camp before the season and he actually just wanted $8.5m (assuming that is correct, and who the fuck knows), then the Bruins are morons. I understand not wanting to go to $10m, but $8.5m seems like a very reasonable ask.
If that's what he wants, fucking pay it. I am not paying for season tickets to watch fucking Korpisalo and his .890 save percentage.
If that's what he wants, fucking pay it. I am not paying for season tickets to watch fucking Korpisalo and his .890 save percentage.
The reason he's not a true #1 is because he's never had to be a true #1. They weren't suppressing his value, which implies a level of deviousness, they just had a good situation with two good goalies. This also helped his situation because he was fresher in the games he played because he had more rest. The league is riddled with goalies who couldn't make the jump from 1A to 1 or made the jump to 1 only to fall off a cliff.
It is convenient that $8.5m as Swayman's ask gets into the media < 24 hours after the $64m remark from Neely. I have a hard time believing Gross wasn't shooting for $10m+ before that - as he should be, given he's trying to max out his client's payday - but let's not pretend this was $6.5 v $8.5, and now $7.8 v $8.5 for the past four months.
I wonder if Gross was aiming for the Carey Price contract which would IMO be bananaland for Swayman. Part of me also wonders if Swayman is somehow deluding himself into waiting to see if Shesterkin signs so that somehow sets the market for him.
Swayman himself said he was looking to set the market. His agent said they were looking for McAvoy money. So yea they definitely weren't near 8.5 until Neely called them out. This is some serious backtracking from Gross. Magically they're asking for 8.5 once the Bruins said they offered 64m.
The typical path for elite goalies is ELC -> milti-year bridge -> Max Deal. Vasilevsky played his ELC, then signed a 3 year $3.5 million AAV contract after which, still as an RFA, he signed his current 8x$9.5 million contract. Going back a bit further, Anaheim did the same with John Gibson. He went ELC -> 3x$2.3 million AAV bridge deal -> 8x$6.4 million contract. The Islanders bridged Sorokin 3-years before his big contract, Dallas and NY bridged Oettinger and Shesterkin respectively and will soon be extending them to max deals. When all of those players signed their big contracts they had much more experience and better resumes then Swayman currently has.
So maybe total dollar value is not setting the market but it is for a player of his service time. He is trying to break the mold and skip a couple of the bridge years and go straight to the max extension. He played the 3 years on his ELC, then last year on the arb award and now he wants the big long term deal. Which is certainly his right, I hope he maximizes his earnings, but it's unprecedented.
If we could rewind the whole thing I think the Bruins mistake was last offseason.
Bingo, this was when they needed to move Ullmark and commit to Swayman if that was their end game. Frankly I wanted to see it because of the cap situation and lingering saltiness around the nature of the round 1 exit, but also think they probably felt dealing a Vezina winner and going with a guy who had minimal playoff experience was a legitimate risk. Fast forward to this offseason and that risk is mitigated, but you've got an RFA with a lot more leverage this time around.
Tough situation. If this is resolved at a number < $8.5m AAV, no harm done and they got Letourneau to boot out of the whole thing.
Yeah, move Ullmark, bridge Swayman and find a JAG veteran to backup. Or keep Ullmark, skip the Lucic and JvR signings and allocate that money to a Swayman bridge deal and fill in with AHL guys for a year.
They got boxed in by the cap and even though Swayman is the one who elected to file it felt like the team had no choice but to go to the hearing and try to squeeze him. Additionally, they could've elected a 2-year arb award. It would've raised the AAV of the award but kicked the long term extension discussions down the road to the 24/25 season or offseason. He'd still be restricted, they would have 2 more years of data and Swayman would be getting his big pay day after 2 years of a rising cap.
It’s really hard for me to view “Reset the market” as containing an unspoken “for a goalie who has played very well but with no experience being the definite number 1, despite the fact that we’re signing him to be our definite number 1.” Seems like a pretty damned small market to be resetting.
“Resting the market,” to me, is a record setting or meeting contract. Not a $700,000 AAV difference on an offer 1/5 lower than the current top.
Edit: I’m not trying to be flippant to be an asshole. IMHO, Cam was pretty clearly talking to a fan base that thinks the Bruins are fucking this up, yesterday, not those with a nuanced understanding of service time and control, etc. I think that changes the intended implications of his words, not that your analysis is wrong.
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Is it convenient, or a clear response to what happened yesterday, the first time someone put a number in public? And who’s pretending that they’ve been $700k apart for four months?
The media and fans are on Swayman because he made it happen. Hurt feeling from arbitration hearing, wants to set market, agent who holds guys out, getting his story out, holds out of camp, etc.
Very good goalie but the $8m - $9m was the number all along. Swayman’s side doesn’t have the leverage and the Bruins are playing this correctly. I don’t fault Swayman or the Bruins.
I hope he signs and really hope he lives up to the contract. I think the jury is still out on if he is an elite, game changing goalie. 8 years is a team changing investment.
Very good goalie but the $8m - $9m was the number all along. Swayman’s side doesn’t have the leverage and the Bruins are playing this correctly. I don’t fault Swayman or the Bruins.
I hope he signs and really hope he lives up to the contract. I think the jury is still out on if he is an elite, game changing goalie. 8 years is a team changing investment.
I say this as someone who, if Sway is going to hold out, hoped Bussi would run away with the gig. He was good on the initial stop, but his rebounds and puck management have been really poor. It's almost like he lacks vision beyond the initial save. It's a tough thing to teach, so while also when we thought Sway was going to be in camp I was worried about exposing Bussi to waivers, I'm not really anymore(Yes small sample size)
The latest from Friedman via the 32 Thoughs podcast.
Bruins started at 4x$6.5 (what Whitney reported), moved to 8x$6.5. Before Monday the Bruins were at 8x$7.5. Now it's obviously 8x$8. Swayman started at 8x$9.5 million. Swayman is still at 8x high 8's or 9. Bruins think they've moved quite a bit and Swayman hasn't moved as much. Still a chasm between the two. The press conference was a coordinated effort because they felt the negotiations were already too public and that they were taking a beating and thus Cam felt the need to defend them.
Doesn't know where it goes from here. Doesn't think the 8x$8 will get it done. Intention from both sides all along has been the long term deal. They're in a cooling off period. Swayman deciding on next steps. Obviously a trade request is possible, nobody knows.
Bruins started at 4x$6.5 (what Whitney reported), moved to 8x$6.5. Before Monday the Bruins were at 8x$7.5. Now it's obviously 8x$8. Swayman started at 8x$9.5 million. Swayman is still at 8x high 8's or 9. Bruins think they've moved quite a bit and Swayman hasn't moved as much. Still a chasm between the two. The press conference was a coordinated effort because they felt the negotiations were already too public and that they were taking a beating and thus Cam felt the need to defend them.
Doesn't know where it goes from here. Doesn't think the 8x$8 will get it done. Intention from both sides all along has been the long term deal. They're in a cooling off period. Swayman deciding on next steps. Obviously a trade request is possible, nobody knows.
At this point I think I’d rather have the cap space at the trade deadline. I’d tell him the 8x$8 is on the table until 12/1. After that, we’ll take the best trade for you at the draft next summer.
I wonder how much the Bruins sort of see Goalie Bob as their get out of jail free card here.
It sure seems like he's been very good at making good goalies great and 'meh' goalies good. Maybe they see Korpisalo as having a bigger upside with Bob than other teams would have been able to find and so they can wait this out with Sway.
It sure seems like he's been very good at making good goalies great and 'meh' goalies good. Maybe they see Korpisalo as having a bigger upside with Bob than other teams would have been able to find and so they can wait this out with Sway.
Okay...so let me get this straight. We have a 25 year old goaltender who, in his limited time as a starter, has shown that he is potentially an elite NHL goaltender (all star, international, etc). Annoyed at the negotiating tactics from his camp we decide fuck it, let's refuse to continue negotiating, torpedo his value when he doesn't play all season, and move him for peanuts next year when we have even less leverage. Sounds good guys.
Or we can just continue to let this public (and therefore ugly) negotiation play out, possibly pay him a couple hundred K more per year than we wanted, and get ready to roll with him as part of our core.
Or we can just continue to let this public (and therefore ugly) negotiation play out, possibly pay him a couple hundred K more per year than we wanted, and get ready to roll with him as part of our core.
I think they do expect Goalie Bob to turn JK into chicken salad, but mostly so that Swayman only has to play 65% of the regular season so he's primed when it counts.
Also, I don't think Fluto is helping one bit- he's churning out 3 articles a day with inflammatory headlines (maybe the headlines aren't his, but he learned way too much at the feet of KPD) that are in articles that an AI bot could right as they're just rephrasing the same basic points he's been making since the start.
Leverage is not necessarily less next offseason. He will still be valued as a young promising goalie on the free agent market. It's clear that Swayman's agent wasn't really negotiating in good faith, and got called on it.
I’m with Dummy. (Hey, great tee idea! )
Kidding aside, franchise goalies don’t grow on trees. As you now know, I believe Swayman to be ‘special’. I believe the Bruins can win a Cup with him. I believe the Bruins have a contending team this year.
I don’t believe there is a chasm between the two parties. If Sway is at 9 and the team is at 8, this needs to get done asap. Like Myt1 said in an earlier post; the Bruins do not get credit for moving from 6.5. I’ll give them credit starting at the 7.5 figure.
So in my mind, they’ve moved all of 500K.
We all know negotiations typically start with a ‘wish’ offer, but 4x6.5 is an insult. Oh, it’s a loooong bridge you say? And you want a long term deal? Ok, we got it, how about 8x6.5? That’s even worse, with the escalating cap, no “next deal”. That’s not a real offer, that’s hot garbage. No wonder Sway and his camp were heated and began leaking.
8x8.5 and get to work on the next banner please.
Kidding aside, franchise goalies don’t grow on trees. As you now know, I believe Swayman to be ‘special’. I believe the Bruins can win a Cup with him. I believe the Bruins have a contending team this year.
I don’t believe there is a chasm between the two parties. If Sway is at 9 and the team is at 8, this needs to get done asap. Like Myt1 said in an earlier post; the Bruins do not get credit for moving from 6.5. I’ll give them credit starting at the 7.5 figure.
So in my mind, they’ve moved all of 500K.
We all know negotiations typically start with a ‘wish’ offer, but 4x6.5 is an insult. Oh, it’s a loooong bridge you say? And you want a long term deal? Ok, we got it, how about 8x6.5? That’s even worse, with the escalating cap, no “next deal”. That’s not a real offer, that’s hot garbage. No wonder Sway and his camp were heated and began leaking.
8x8.5 and get to work on the next banner please.
Is 4 x 6.5 an insult? I agree the 8 x 6.5 offer was bad and shouldn't have been made, but paying extra for 2 restricted free agent seasons and paying less for two unrestricted seems pretty fair. That also still makes him only 29 when the four year deal would be up and in line for a higher number and longer term deal. And according to this $6.5 per year would still make him 6th highest paid goalie in the league right now, which isn't egregious as a starting point.
https://frontofficesports.com/the-25-highest-paid-nhl-goaltenders/
If that 4 x 6.5 is insulting shouldn't the Bruins be insulted at 8 x 9.5 that Swayman wanted? I'd say no, those are both perfectly fine starting points.
https://frontofficesports.com/the-25-highest-paid-nhl-goaltenders/
If that 4 x 6.5 is insulting shouldn't the Bruins be insulted at 8 x 9.5 that Swayman wanted? I'd say no, those are both perfectly fine starting points.
Both sides are playing this poorly in public IMO. Swayman and his agent with the "we're not negotiating in public but we are going to leak a bunch of stuff that makes the Bruins look bad while talking about my prep / strategy going into this negotiation" and the Bruins for the radio silence and giving the agent just enough to claim they are lying.
The 4x$6.5 is maybe a little low but as a starting point, I don't think it's insulting.
Oettinger's 2nd contract with Dallas was 3x$4 million. Oettinger had 2-years of experience, 77 games at a .913 when the deal was signed. It gobbled up 3 of his 4 remaining years of team control. Shesterkin's 2nd contract with the Rangers was 4x$5.67 million. That takes him straight to free agency upon expiration. Shesterkin had even less experience, only 47 games at .921 when that contract was signed. I don't believe either of them were arb eligible when those deals were signed either. Also, since he is arb eligible, he's free to sign an offer sheet unlike the other players.
Swayman's situation is different in that he's more experienced than those 2 players with 3 full years of NHL experience and 132 games under his belt. Additionally, a 4-year contract is buying two UFA years which raises AAV.
Swayman's career path is unique so it's hard to nail down specifc comparables. He basically skipped the AHL out of necessity due to injuries to Rask and Halak, and was essentially good enough to hang around for good (minues the Rask comeback fiasco). Due to that he accumulated enough service time that coming out of his ELC he was arbitration eligible, unlike the two players I listed above.
Maybe you’re right. Insult may be strong language for the 4x6.5, but the 8x6.5 certainly was. I agree the 8x9.5 was high, but a fair starting point.
I agree with the last part.
But his value will absolutely be lowered after a year of not playing NHL hockey, which he cannot do unless he signs by 12/1.
The Bruins are a better team with Swayman, than without. So I hope this is true.
View: https://twitter.com/smclaughlin9/status/1841811926998802499?s=46
View: https://twitter.com/smclaughlin9/status/1841811926998802499?s=46
If you game it out, there aren't really any plausible scenarios where he's not a Bruin.
Signing an offer sheet won't happen. At his current price point the compensation is 4 first round picks which nobody is going to give up. If someone signs a short term, lower AAV offer sheet that reduces the compensation, the Bruins will match and deal with the fall out and long term extension down the road.
He could request a trade but even if he does that I'm not sure it ends with him on a new team. At least not in the short term. The Bruins aren't going to give him away just to settle it. The return they would ask for in a trade will be comparable to the RFA offer sheet compensation, so 4 first round picks. They are not getting that from another team, especially if Swayman is at home, unsigned and not playing. If Swayman truly wants a trade his best path to that is signing a 1 or 2 year deal, requesting a trade and playing to maintain/build value. This is similar to the DeBrusk playbook and, as with DeBrusk, it ultimately may not even end in a trade.
The nuclear scenario is sitting out the year but I fail to see how that benefits him. He'd be losing millions and he'd still be restricted and under the Bruins control and we're back at hte same point next year except he's a year removed from playing NHL games.
Signing an offer sheet won't happen. At his current price point the compensation is 4 first round picks which nobody is going to give up. If someone signs a short term, lower AAV offer sheet that reduces the compensation, the Bruins will match and deal with the fall out and long term extension down the road.
He could request a trade but even if he does that I'm not sure it ends with him on a new team. At least not in the short term. The Bruins aren't going to give him away just to settle it. The return they would ask for in a trade will be comparable to the RFA offer sheet compensation, so 4 first round picks. They are not getting that from another team, especially if Swayman is at home, unsigned and not playing. If Swayman truly wants a trade his best path to that is signing a 1 or 2 year deal, requesting a trade and playing to maintain/build value. This is similar to the DeBrusk playbook and, as with DeBrusk, it ultimately may not even end in a trade.
The nuclear scenario is sitting out the year but I fail to see how that benefits him. He'd be losing millions and he'd still be restricted and under the Bruins control and we're back at hte same point next year except he's a year removed from playing NHL games.
Yep, I agree. His best leverage was public opinion/media, and Neely cut his legs out from under him on that front in the press conference. The risk there is poisoning the relationship, but if Swayman is going to keep talking about "it's a business, it's a business", he can't then on the flip side hold it against the Bruins for handling their business as well just because he doesn't like it.
I think it gets done sooner than later as well, and we'll look back at the press conference as the turning point.
Swayman might say he understands it’s just a business, but I’m starting to question if he really believes that.
View: https://twitter.com/br_openice/status/1841831916317675607?s=46
stuff like this may motivate him, but it makes him look petty as hell.
I mean he could have just looked at the two previous seasons when they played injured goalies over him that they didn’t think he was trustworthy in the playoffs.
(whispers)
would it be fair to point out to him that he was 6-6 last year and in round 1 lost games 5 and 6 and game 7 was a coin flip in OT after being up 3-1?
and was pulled in game 2 of the 2nd round after giving up 4?
and gave up 5 in game 3 of the 2nd round?
(/whispers)
would it be fair to point out to him that he was 6-6 last year and in round 1 lost games 5 and 6 and game 7 was a coin flip in OT after being up 3-1?
and was pulled in game 2 of the 2nd round after giving up 4?
and gave up 5 in game 3 of the 2nd round?
(/whispers)
In fairness - he did have a .933 save percentage. He wasn't the reason the Bruins lost those games. The Bruins only scoring 1 goal in 4 of those losses was a far bigger issue.
The chipped shoulder worked for DeBrusk for awhile.
Most Celtics fans see it as a positive that Brown and Tatum have chips on the shoulders. To be fair, neither thinks (AFAIK) that the Celtics are the cause, as Swayman seems to, so the comparison may not be totally on target.
Maybe he just really misses Ullmark. They were tight.
It looks like the compensation for offer sheets changes yearly since the CBA was signed. I guess Swayman likely falls into this range?
$6,871,374 to $9,161,834 - 1st, 2nd and 3rd round picks
Above $11,452,294 is now 4 1st-round picks
I do not understand what you guys are talking about… I love this about him. Do you know who wouldn’t do this? Fucking Ben Simmons in the NBA. Do you know who would do this? Michael Jordan and Tom motherfucking Brady. Goes without saying that I am not comparing Swayman to Jordan and Brady in terms of performance or ceiling or success, however, this is exactly the “petty“ mentality that I want in my athletes.
Please add KG to the above list.