Swayman being handed a deserved shot

“I just wanted to do my part,” said Swayman. “The defense in front of me was doing an excellent job of eliminating a lot of potential pucks that could have been point-blank shots. That’s my job and it’s a collective job by the team every night.”

Just like it’s everybody else’s job to provide him with more than one goal, as they haven’t been able to do in four of Swayman’s last seven starts dating back to the middle of December.

“At some point we’ve got to find a way to help Sway out. He played great tonight and we’ve got to find a way to put more than one of the board,” lamented Morgan Geekie.

The Bruins called Brandon Bussi up from Providence to serve as the backup on Thursday night and the likelihood is he’ll serve in that capacity again against the St. Louis Blues this weekend with Swayman between the pipes. There’s no determination as to how long Ullmark will be out after he needed to be helped off the ice at the end of Tuesday night’s OT loss in Arizona, but Swayman has earned a chance for extended playing time with his performance this season.

It's the reason he’s in line to be one of the remaining four goaltenders invited to NHL All-Star weekend via the fan voting while ranking top-10 in the NHL in goals against average (2.47) and save percentage (.920).

“[Swayman] was terrific again. Unfortunately, our goaltender has got to make several great saves for us just to get a point right now,” said Jim Montgomery. “We need to keep teaching our D-zone coverage, keep teaching our tracking and holding players accountable to getting above pucks and being on the right side of them.”

And now it allows B’s management a window into what it might look like next season and beyond if Swayman were to become the undisputed No. 1 netminder for the franchise.  

“You never want a goalie to go down, obviously. There’s no doubt in my mind he’s going to be back quickly because he’ll do whatever he needs to do to do that,” said Swayman. “But it’s just like last year when I went down, he stepped up. It’s my job to do that and to take it night by night and day-by-day to wait for his return.

“But we absolutely want to get as many wins as we can.”

That’s the right attitude for Swayman to have moving forward, particularly with reports circulating that a contract extension might be in the offing for him sooner rather than later. If the 25-year-old netminder can consistently maintain his level of performance for a week or two (or even longer) while carrying the mail, it will go a long way toward convincing the B’s decision makers that he’s capable of doing it A) during the upcoming playoffs and B) next season and beyond as a more clear-cut No. 1 guy that the Bruins haven’t had since Tuukka Rask retired.

Certainly he’s already proven he is no longer any kind of understudy to the reigning Vezina Trophy winner in Ullmark, but that’s still a far cry from being considered a franchise puck-stopper.  

There’s really no other way for Swayman to prove it other than by going out and performing when the circumstance presents itself while raising his profile with things like NHL All-Star honors.

One thing the Bruins can do?

It’s provide a little more offense for a goalie that’s played well this season but hasn’t always had the run support. The Bruins have scored one goal or less in four of Swayman’s last seen starts, including the Thursday night defeat in Vegas where it was a single Matt Grzelcyk goal that accounted for their offense.

“We forced Sway to make too many big saves. He was great tonight [against Vegas],” said Matt Grzelcyk. “It’s obviously a tough one to lose. I thought guys were competing, but obviously a little bit too undisciplined in what’s become a theme here.”

As the Boston Bruins head into the middle of January, they are kind of in “It Is What It Is” territory at this point with what kind of team they are going to be. The B’s are obviously a playoff team, but they rely heavily on their goaltending to be elite level every night to have a chance at winning.

The goaltending play of Ullmark and Swayman has been for the most part.

Now Swayman looks like he will be getting a long-awaited opportunity to see if he can keep things at that level on his own when things like durability, consistency and endurance separate the franchise goaltenders from everybody else at the NHL level.