7 Trade Landing Spots for Boston Bruins Goalie Jeremy Swayman Amid NHL Rumors

We're about a week away from the Boston Bruins' season opener, and No. 1 goalie and restricted free agent Jeremy Swayman is still unsigned. Camp got off to an awkward start when Boston GM Don Sweeney said he was hopeful they'd get something done before the Dec. 1 deadline for RFAs to sign.

Sweeney's statement got eyebrows perked up, but after Bruins president of hockey operations Cam Neely made his feelings known on Monday about Swayman's absence from training camp, there's a bit more reason to worry.

Neely has never been one to pull his punches both as a player and an executive, and if he's saying their offer to Swayman was eight years at $8 million a season, that's a power flex on his part. It also puts the ball firmly in Swayman's court to decide what's next.
Swayman's agent Lewis Gross denied that the Bruins made an offer in that region in a statement made on Instagram.

According to Sportsnet insider, Elliotte Friedman, a possibility of a trade request cannot be ruled out.

Swayman would seem to want more money and as a No. 1 goalie, who can blame him? But the Bruins don't exactly have the kind of cap flexibility to do that, and it'll bring teams out of the fog eager to acquire one of the NHL's top netminders.

Call it premature if you want to, but we put together a list of the teams who ought to come calling for Swayman. We could've added in a few of the Bruins' Atlantic Division rivals, but we're thinking giving one of them a top goalie (Linus Ullmark to Ottawa) was one move enough for a while. Don't worry, there are plenty of others for you to air your thoughts out about in the comments.

One of the things the Flyers are missing in their current rebuild is a goaltender.

Philadelphia's hopes currently rest on Samuel Ersson and Ivan Fedotov at the NHL level with prospects Alexei Kolosov and Carson Bjarnason deep in the pipeline.

If the Flyers are going to get over the hump and into the playoffs now and for the seasons to come, they need a solid answer in goal, and Jeremy Swayman would more than provide that.

The Flyers like Ersson, and he's shown there's a lot of upsides to his game. Even though GM Danny Brière has shown remarkable patience in leading them through their current rebuild, they were virtually silent in free agency this summer. With how close they came to making the playoffs last season, adding a star goaltender to the roster would be emboldening to what they're doing.

Yes, the Flyers have questions elsewhere in the lineup, but a great goalie can make a lot of those questions more negligible.

The Los Angeles Kings have a lot of very good things going for them with an older star in Anže Kopitar, vital support scorers like Kevin Fiala and Adrian Kempe and a young star like Quinton Byfield.

Even though Drew Doughty's broken ankle casts a shadow on the start of the season, they've got plenty of depth on defense to weather his absence. But they're relying on Darcy Kuemper, David Rittich and Pheonix Copley to hold it down in goal, and that could be their biggest question mark heading into the season.

Without a doubt, L.A. adding a goalie the caliber of Swayman would shift the power in the Western Conference. The Kings' advanced numbers last season were very strong and they're returning a lot of the same players, a few of whom are young and improving themselves. Although Kuemper helped lead Colorado to a Stanley Cup a few seasons ago, he struggled last season in Washington and came to L.A. in the Pierre-Luc Dubois trade eager for a refresh.

It's a gamble for the Kings, but with players like Kopitar and Doughty not getting younger but with the experience of knowing what it takes to win, locking it up in goal would spring them into the discussion as Western Conference contenders.

We've talked recently about how the battle atop the Central Division will be something absolutely brutal considering how Dallas, Winnipeg and Colorado beat each other about last season. Now with Nashville getting into it with their monster summer of signings, it's even more difficult.

The Avalanche don't have a lot of holes, and you could argue they don't really have any, but one thing they lack in comparison to Dallas, Winnipeg and Nashville is an elite goalie. Alexandar Georgiev is very good, but we saw some cracks in the armor last season. After Colorado was bounced in the second round by Dallas, the questions haven't gone away.

If Colorado splurged and acquired Jeremy Swayman from Boston, however, the only question remaining would be whether or not they'd win the Stanley Cup.

There's no doubt the Chicago Blackhawks are building ahead to eventually become an annual Stanley Cup contender. With Connor Bedard already in place and with other potential young stars like Kevin Korchinski, Alex Vlasic and Frank Nazar III making their way up, goaltending is clearly the one position Chicago needs to address to shore up its foundation and fast-forward the rebuild.

Why not make that goalie Jeremy Swayman?

Chicago has prospects and picks out the wazoo to use in a trade, and while they're in the middle of an arduous rebuild, sacrificing some of those assets to land an elite-level goalie like Swayman would lock down a vital position and give those younger players the backstop needed to give them the confidence to play to their strengths.

A big argument against doing this would be that it's too soon to push such a young team toward the postseason, especially when the rebuild is still in progress. But when you consider the bottom part of the Western Conference playoff race might be very much up for grabs, adding Swayman might sway the competition in a big way immediately—and even more so down the road when all those young players potentially head toward stardom.

We'll confess that we sometimes harp on Carolina Hurricanes goaltending a bit too hard. They've got a potentially very good young netminder in Pyotr Kochetkov, and with veteran Frederik Andersen with him, it's a good duo that's won them a lot of games over the years.

But even with them there and often playing well, how is it we always end up coming back to goaltending? Adding Jeremy Swayman as the starter would go a long way toward nixing that belabored discussion.

We know Swayman's workload hasn't been as burdensome as many other No. 1 goalies have had to deal with, but only one time since Cam Ward retired has a Hurricanes goalie played 50 or more games—Andersen in 2021-2022—and he posted a brilliant .922 save percentage that season. Swayman's career average is .919, and if you're going to have a guy play that many games, Swayman is darn close to being a sure bet as you will find among goalies.

Yes, predicting goalie performance is almost impossible, but Swayman's track record is extremely good, and the Hurricanes have to get over the hump and back to the Stanley Cup Final soon. After four straight 100-point seasons and only one conference final appearance, the pressure is on.

Swayman would make Carolina arguably the most dangerous team in the East.

Oh yeah, it is time, everyone.

Time to throw the Vegas Golden Knights' hat into the ring for speculation on a star player, but this time, we're doing it because it would sort of make sense.

Vegas' goaltending tandem of Adin Hill and Ilya Samsonov are each in the final year of their contracts this season (in Samsonov's case, he signed a one-year deal in July) and with Robin Lehner injured, destined for LTIR and also on the final year of his deal, it's possible the Golden Knights could be in the market for a goaltending change.

Yes, Hill helped Vegas win their first Stanley Cup, and he's been an incredible addition to their roster ever since he joined them. But with a $4.9 million cap hit (not to mention Lehner's at $5 million), that's a lot of money that could go a long way toward locking up Swayman as their No. 1 goalie for years to come.

Of course, the acquisition cost to trade for Swayman would be very high, and whether or not Vegas could meet that is highly debatable. They're low on prospects and draft picks as trade chips as far as they're concerned. The possibility of Vegas making such a move is very low, but with the way they've sprung on other big players in recent years, (Tomas Hertl, Noah Hanifin, Jack Eichel) you can never rule them out.

Utah Hockey Club has been bold all summer, and if they wanted to do their part to really gun for a spot in the playoffs—not just a hot take—making a monster splash for Jeremy Swayman would be the way to do it.

Utah has a solid goalie in Connor Ingram, and even backup Karel Vejmelka has played well behind some poor teams over the years in Arizona. But adding Swayman would ideally help cover for the team's apparent shortcomings.

Swayman's play would help save their defenders by allowing fewer goals, and it would help their questionable offense win a few more games by making two or three-goal outings become tough wins as opposed to hard-luck losses.

It's a new day for the players in Utah, and after some tough, tough years in Arizona, Utah is being run like a professional team at last. After adding Mikhail Sergachev and John Marino to their defense, bringing in a higher-caliber goalie would make them a bit less of an underdog when it comes to winning games.

They've got growing up to do in Salt Lake City, and adding Swayman would more than help with that process.