Several Boston Bruins players need a bounce-back season after a dismal 2024-25 season for the Black and Gold. Just about anything that could go wrong did go wrong, and a lot of players contributed to that with underperforming seasons.
One of those players was goalie Jeremy Swayman, after a training camp and preseason that was a disaster from the start. He ended his contract holdout right before the season opener, and his performance was not that of a netminder who is getting paid $8.25 million a year.
Swayman is back for Year 2 of his contract, and you have to think that he's ready to rebound in 2025-26, but also coming back at this time are Joonas Korpisalo and Michael DiPietro. With the trio a month away from training camp beginning, where does one NHL analyst rank the Black and Gold's goaltending compared to the rest of the NHL?
NHL analyst ranks Boston Bruins goaltending in the middle of the pack of the NHL
Travis Yost of TSN ranked all 32 teams' goaltending into five tiers, Tier 5 being at the bottom and Tier 1 being at the top. Where did the Bruins' goaltending fall? They fell into Tier 3, right smack dab in the middle of the NHL. Here is what Yost wrote,
"The inevitable rebuild Boston’s put off for what feels like a decade may have finally arrived, but I’m certain Don Sweeney is looking for an immediate rebound from his goaltending duo in Jeremy Swayman and Joonas Korpisalo who stopped just 89.0 per cent of shots last year. It was a concerning drop-off from Swayman behind a weakened Bruins skater group, signed on a lucrative contract through the 2031-32 season."
After the season they had last year, Korpisalo having somewhat of a rebound season after a dismal season before with the Ottawa Senators, might be what kept this group from ending up in Tier 4, believe it or not. Swayman had a great run in May at the World Championship, leading Team USA to the Gold Medal, and despite throwing the coaching staff under the bus at the end of last season, Korpisalo appears to be coming back for another season in Boston.
DiPietro will have a say in training camp as to who Swayman's backup is when the season begins, but expect the Boston goaltending to have a rebound season in 2025-26 and move up a tier this time next summer.