One of the questions that the Boston Bruins fans have been asking themselves since last June is, “Why did Don Sweeney take Joonas Korpisalo back from the Ottawa Senators as part of the Linus Ullmark trade?” Honestly, I have often wondered that myself.
In 2023-24, Korpisalo had his worst season numbers-wise, and it wasn’t even close. He went 21-26-4 for a Senators’ team that missed the playoffs by a lot. His goals-against average of 3.27 and a save percentage of .890 weren’t close to how bad he was. Before being able to dump him off on Sweeney and the Bruins, Ottawa tried moving him and got no takers. They even retained $1 million of his annual AAV of $4 million.
Boston must have thought that goalie coach Bob Essensa could fix Korpisalo, and in some cases, he did. In his first season with the Bruins, he went 11-10-3 with a 2.90 GAA and an .893 SV%. Signs of improvement for sure. However, it doesn’t appear that he was happy with his reduced workload, with Jeremy Swayman getting a majority of the starts this season. He spoke about it a few weeks ago and doubled down on Thursday.
Bruins goalie Joonas Korpisalo throws the organization under the bus
Thursday morning, Bruins players cleaned out their lockers for the off-season, which is going to be a long one. They met with the media, along with interim coach Joe Sacco, and in Korpisalo’s case, he once again subtly made it known that he was not happy with the number of appearances he made this season.
“I don't think there's any goal in the league who’s really comfortable playing 20-25 games,'' Korpisalo said. "So I'm going to push for more games, for sure, and we'll see what happens.”
It’s understandable that he is frustrated with his playing time, but honestly, what did he expect after the Bruins signed Jeremy Swayman to his contract right before the puck dropped on the season? Boston is not giving Swayman $8.25 million a year to split the game right down the middle. It’s just not happening.
Did Korpisalo play better than expected? Yes, the case could be made that he did, but did it warrant more of a bump in his playing time? Personally, if I’m making $3 million from a team and I play 20-25 games, you’re not hearing much of a gripe out of me. I guess everyone is different.
You have to wonder if these comments are more of a “Trade me” or Korpisalo just letting out frustration. It has been mentioned on this site that trading him and going with a cheaper backup of either Michael DiPietro, Brandon Bussi, or someone else is the avenue that Sweeney needs to explore this summer. If you can get someone to take him off your hands, then it’s a move you almost have to make.
In doing that, you create a little more cap space, and truth be told, Sweeney is going to need every dollar of cap space he can get. Expect him to spend to the limit, as there is a good chance that another season like this could mean the end of his tenure at GM with the Black and Gold.