Contract negotiations are inherently uncomfortable.
In life, at one point or another, we’ll all find ourselves sitting across from a superior. You believe your worth is x, and they’ll tell you why they think your value is y. Ultimately, someone leaves the room disappointed that’s the game. Imagine having to experience it twice in as many years. For both restricted free agent Jeremy Swayman and Don Sweeney that is reality.
A lot has been speculated, and we’ll never truly know what was real and what was a fallacy. Ultimately a resolution should be shortly down the road. So here is a level-headed perspective of where things are.
In late August, a rumor gained significant traction regarding Swayman and the Boston Bruins. Rich Keefe of WEEI reported that Swayman, with the backing of his agent Lewis Gross, lobbied for a contract with an average annual value of $10 million.
Fair to assume this is legitimate? Sure, see Gross’ most recent work with the William Nylander contract for validation.
However, nobody can pinpoint when this request was made as it relates to the process. If indeed $10 million was Swayman’s ‘take it or leave it’ counter, he likely wouldn’t wake up in August with a renewed sense of worth. If a player feels their value is $10 million, I assure you they won’t wait until the eleventh hour to make that known. Plus, if Boston was unwilling to go there, why would Don Sweeney back himself into a corner by trading Linus Ullmark with one more year at $5 million on June 25th?
Further, any rumor carrying that type of gravitas in late summer given the Bruins current goaltending situation would lurch every beat reporter north of the border off their axis. Yet, it took days for anyone to emerge with insight.
Friday, Elliott Friedman, on his “32 Thoughts” podcast, described the process of getting details on where things are as “tough.” He went on to say, “the team won’t talk, and the player won’t talk”. Crediting “Spittin Chiclets” host Ryan Whitney’s report that Boston’s current offer was 4x$6.2 million, “nobody has disputed that”.
Friedman added “at some point there was an 8 year deal on the table (from Boston) but it was in the sixes”.
In asking around the league as to why the Bruins have taken such a “hard line” in the Swayman negotiations, Friedman got an interesting response (not from the Bruins), which puts things into perspective. “While there isn’t a sense of disbelief in Swayman, he has only played in 131 career games”.
TSN’s Darren Dreger on Monday tossed the proverbial water on the fire: “I’m not saying it’s imminent. But, I do think the negotiations are probably closer than what we’re reading about”.
What is most admirable throughout this process is Swayman’s maturation. Individually, he has done everything to show how dedicated he is to the Bruins. He remained in Boston for the summer, training and skating, and attending Bruins captain practices earlier this month. But more so in his appearance on the “Shut Up Marc” podcast. Where his candid insight from last summer’s arbitration process “opened his eyes” to the business side of hockey.
“For the answer that I’m going to give you this year is that I’ve educated myself and that I understand the business side of it all. And it’s given me a complete new mindset of understanding the business and how to react to it.” Swayman then delivered the most intriguing quote “I understand the cap is going up and where it will be in years. I understand my comparables and how I can’t ruin the goalie market for other guys that are going to be in my shoes down the line.”
Perspective matters.
For Boston they want Swayman to be a long term solution in net and are willing to compensate him accordingly for a player with tremendous upside, but a smaller sample size, setting both player and team for a significant salary bump down the road. Similarly to how they handled both Charlie McAvoy and David Pastrnak coming off their entry level contracts. Like everything else they aren’t willing to bend cultural norms satisfying a single entity.
However, it would appear Swayman is less likely to follow in their footsteps, directly referencing “the goalie market,” and lacking the desire to “ruin it” for other guys soon to be in his shoes.
The fact remains there is a small handful of people in the world who actually know what is happening here and they just so happen to be the ones who need to reach an agreement.
