Jeremy Swayman’s negotiations just reached critical point!
After Bruins’ Cam Neely said he had 64 million reasons why he’d be playing if he were the goalie:
It’s no secret in Boston, things are getting ugly between the Bruins and goalie Jeremy Swayman. After team president Cam Neely insinuated that the team had offered the unsigned RFA goaltender a $64 million contract, Swayman’s agent Lewis Gross flat out called Neely a liar.
“We are extremely disappointed,” Gross posted on Instagram. “This was not fair to Jeremy. We will take a few days to discuss where we go from here.”
Swayman and the Bruins have been deadlocked in a highly publicized contract dispute and Chris Johnston and Darren Dreger spoke on last night’s Insider Trading on TSN about how negotiations could get worse before it gets better. Johnston believe the upcoming week with be the critical point, but that there is a week “to repair things, to get back to the bargaining table before either of them lose something tangible.” And he also believes Swayman might have added motivation in the money he could lose:
“I think that fact alone guarantees that after a little bit of a cooling off period, they’re going to take another run at this. Consider this: If Jeremy Swayman isn’t signed by opening night, every night of the season that passes by, he is forfeiting salary - something like $40,000 a day. If he’s not in uniform for the Bruins. If the Bruins don’t sign him by opening night, they will have a more difficult time fitting him under their cap structure when they eventually do. And so, because of those facts, and while clearly there’s some emotion here, Jeremy Swayman still has some bad feelings about the way his summer arbitration hearing went in 2023. Probably doesn’t like the way Cam Neely obviously tabled what is a true $64 million offer. There is a lot of money. There is a real offer there, and there is a week here for them to get back and to try to find something to get this player signed.”
While I can’t be sure why the Bruins began openly negotiating with Swayman and his representative through the media, Dreger believes the team remains “hopeful, optimistic, and committed to getting something done to sign their bona fide No. 1 goaltender.”
He added: “The Boston Bruins can’t tell you what the timeline to get something done is because there’s an ongoing negotiation. They wanted to continue as amicably as possible, and they understand that social media - the rumour mill - is grinding out all sorts of different scenarios, including trade possibilities. But look, we need to remind everybody out there that he is a restricted free agent. The Boston Bruins own his rights, so none of that is happening anytime soon. They’re still committed to getting an extension worked out.”
As of now, there is unfortunately no end in sight. And yes, with the regular season just around the corner, we’ve hit the critical point.
