NEWTON, Mass. — Jeremy Swayman is a pretty busy guy.
He’s got his first baby due at any moment this month, he learned last week that he finished third in the Vezina Trophy voting behind winner Andrei Vasilevskiy, and he was one of the pro athlete celebrities at the Cam Neely Foundation’s 32nd Annual Golf Tournament held on Monday at Charles River Country Club.
Swayman joked that he was going to annoy everybody he was golfing with on Monday by “leaving his cell phone on loud ring” just in case the baby decided that it was go time to come into the world.
“They’re all gonna hate me today,” said Swayman with a laugh.
But the B’s netminder has also been an avid watcher of this spring’s Stanley Cup playoffs even after his team was eliminated in the first round, and he’s already into the second phase of his offseason training regimen. Swayman said he was right back to work after a team golf outing that signaled the official end of the season for last year’s Black and Gold crew back in early May.
“I have a hard time switching it off, so I’ve been watching the playoffs pretty closely,” admitted Swayman, who finished with a 31-18-4 record and a .908 save percentage in the regular season behind a Boston defense that surrendered their share of Grade-A chances during the year. “You’re just trying to learn how you can manage a playoff run all the way until June. … That’s the goal. There is a lot of motivation watching these games.
“Right after we got back from our golf trip, it was right back in the gym and right on the ice. I’ve been at Warrior [Ice Arena] starting on a good program and I’m already on phase two now. It’s crazy how fast it’s going. It’s also a good time to get away from the rink, manage your home life and really detach, so the golf course is a good place for that, and the White Mountains are a good place for that. Haven’t been on the water yet, so I need to get my fishing in. But it’s been day-by-day with all of that.”
It has been a radically different offseason for the 27-year-old after he helped Team USA win the gold medal at the IIHF World Championships a year ago after a wholly disappointing, non-playoff regular season with the Bruins. But staying home in Boston and focusing on offseason training after a still-early exit from the postseason this spring should allow the B’s netminder to be even more ideally prepared for next season.
As much as there are proponents of low money/cap hit goalies being the trend with goalies like Carter Hart and Freddie Andersen in the Stanley Cup Final, there is little denying that Swayman can be a weapon in the postseason based on his postseason body of work, burgeoning big game reputation and the playoff .918 save percentage that he brings to the table.
The Bruins goaltender is inarguably the best draft pick that the Bruins have made over the last nine years (fourth round in 2017), the biggest advantage they have over most teams that they will play, and the biggest reason for optimism among the Bruins headed into any postseason he’s going to be a part of.
It feels like he is very much living up to the eight-year, $66 million contract he signed amid a lot of strife a couple of years ago and isn’t going to be resting on his laurels after setting things right with a standout, rebound campaign last season.
*It’s been great to see old friend Taylor Hall playing some of the best hockey of his career for the Carolina Hurricanes at age 34 while getting a chance to win a Stanley Cup after grinding for his entire career to get to this stage. Hall is amazingly Carolina’s leading scorer in the postseason this year with six goals and 17 points in 16 games while playing on a dynamic third line for the Hurricanes with Logan Stankoven and Jackson Blake. All of this is after he started the season as a modest fourth-liner after getting traded from the Blackhawks to Carolina a couple of years ago.
Hall is never going to quite be the player many expected him to be after being the No. 1 overall pick in the 2010 NHL Draft, but he’s turned himself into a really effective third line depth player in the second half of his career in Boston, Chicago and Carolina after that one magical season in New Jersey where he won the Hart Trophy and guided that team to the playoffs.
*Well, it was nice while it lasted. Reports out of Detroit are that Dylan Larkin has given the Red Wings three teams where he’d approve a trade, and those three suitors are the Florida Panthers, Vegas Golden Knights and Minnesota Wild.
Dylan Larkin has submitted a list of where he would like the Detroit Red Wings to trade him. It’s only three teams long, and may need to expand. Details here:https://t.co/uUfMOXMyOe
— Helene St. James (@HeleneStJames) June 8, 2026
It feels like the Team USA experience heavily colored Larkin’s decision, as all three of those teams have some pretty heavy hitters from the US Olympic team on them. That aspect certainly may be playing a role in the 29-year-old’s clear decision to leave Hockeytown for a destination where he can compete for a Stanley Cup sooner rather than later.
*Congratulations to former Bruins assistant head coach Jay Leach on being named the next head coach of the AHL’s Hartford Wolfpack, the minor league affiliate for the New York Rangers organization. The Bruins have yet to fill that vacancy on the NHL staff after reports circulated earlier this month that he was not returning to the Black and Gold bench, but Providence Bruins head coach Ryan Mougenel and longtime Marco Sturm assistant coach Chris Hajt are expected to be among the names in the running.
