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Around The League - 2024-25 Regular Season

The Bruins magic has finally started to catch up with them.

It was abnormal that they lost a HHOF d-man and center to retirement without any dropoff. It helps that they've consistently had good to elite goaltending for all of those years and that they've drafted exceptionally well, but it's still hard to overcome that.

They completely mishandled the Ullmark - Swayman situation by firmly cornering themselves and having no other choice but to pay Swayman.

The Lindholm and Zadorov contracts were insane, especially the Lindholm contract. Most of their forwards need a new contract after this season and they aren't stock-pilled with prospects.

Do I think Bawstun's as bad as their record says? No, but their years of being annual contenders are finished. The decline has begun.
 
GGpX said:
The Bruins magic has finally started to catch up with them.

It was abnormal that they lost a HHOF d-man and center to retirement without any dropoff. It helps that they've consistently had good to elite goaltending for all of those years and that they've drafted exceptionally well, but it's still hard to overcome that.

They completely mishandled the Ullmark - Swayman situation by firmly cornering themselves and having no other choice but to pay Swayman.

The Lindholm and Zadorov contracts were insane, especially the Lindholm contract. Most of their forwards need a new contract after this season and they aren't stock-pilled with prospects.

Do I think Bawstun's as bad as their record says? No, but their years of being annual contenders are finished. The decline has begun.
Click to expand...
They got blessed by drafting McAvoy and Pastrnak, and Marchand being a unicorn and having career years in his 30s, and being a prime destination for UFAs, having great goaltending and coaching, but eventually years of drafting no one will catch up with you. Still, they're a better team than they've been showing so far.
 
They'll bounce back. If they were smart, they'd seriously consider trading Marchand and try to find someone who'd be willing to take Hampus Lindholm off their hands... But, thankfully, I don't think they are.
 
Just checked for the hell of it, and... Neither have been good this year.

Jeremy Swayman: .884 save %
Linus Ulmark: .890 save %

Interesting.

So I start digging a little further and I'm starting to wonder... Can either actually play 55-60 games in a season? 'Cuz both are paid a salary demanding they play in the 60 game range. Ulmark's career high in games in one year was 56 in 2016-2017.

2021-2022: Ulmark 41 games (.917 save %) Swayman 41 games (.914 save %) - Ulmark got injured in the playoffs, so Swayman finished it off.
2022-2023: Ulmark 49 games (.938 save % and the Vezina) Swayman 37 games (.920 save %)** Important of note, the Bruins let Swayman play game 7 against the Panthers in round 1 when Ulmark played the first 6 games
2023-2024: Ulmark 40 games (.915 save %) Swayman 44 games (.916 save %)** Both were tied in Vezina voting - Swayman started all but one of the games in the playoffs.

It's remarkable how closely similar both are are, the Vezina season excluded. The Vezina season's interesting because every other goalie that got votes played a minimum of 58 games. Ulmark played 10 less games than everyone else and was the runaway winner. Granted, it helps that he was .014 save % better than everyone else.

Question that I wonder is, are they actual #1 goalies or are they Halak-ian? Awesome backups, but just not good enough to play enough to be a real #1?
 
That's the same question I had this summer, and same question I still have. Neither have ever been a #1 goalie yet are paid like one. Can they play like one? Too early to tell but the question remains.

Goalies man.
 
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