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Swayman leads Bruins to Game 1 victory |
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Ty Anderson
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In a world of leaks and chatter, the fact that the Bruins were able to successfully keep their Game 1 starter plans under wraps until netminder Jeremy Swayman led the Black and Gold out for pregame warmups at 7:36 p.m. on Saturday night was impressive in its own right.
And then came an even more impressive outing from the 25-year-old Swayman, with 35 saves on 36 shots faced in a 5-1 victory that gave the Bruins a 1-0 series lead on the rival Toronto Maple Leafs.
“I thought his athleticism allowed him to make some really good, kind of bouncing puck rebound saves,” Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery offered after the victory. “Made a couple of point blank saves early in the first, and then I thought we got to our game. So it was really important he made those saves because I thought, you know, it finished 1-0, and I think we hit a crossbar and a post there.”
The Bruins provided some strong support for Swayman with Johnny Beecher's game-opening goal on Boston's first shot of the evening, but in between that and the four-goal lead the B's had before the Leafs’ David Kampf put Toronto on the board, this was The Swayman Show.
One of those nights where Swayman had timely saves aplenty, too, Swayman made saves on 15 of 16 high-danger shots faced at all-situational play. NaturalStatTrick also had the Maple Leafs finishing Saturday’s loss with 4.54 expected goals to the one goal actually surrendered by Swayman. This was about as strong a performance as a goalie could’ve had, all things considered, and it even extended beyond the saves for Swayman, as his puck-tracking skills were on display all night long. And even the freezes from Swayman came at pivotal moments, as he seemingly constantly stalled would-be momentum for the Maple Leafs.
But how and why did the Bruins land on Swayman for Game 1?
“We just felt that Swayman hadn’t had the opportunity to start a series before in the last couple of years,” Montgomery said following the Game 1 victory when asked what went into the previously-undisclosed plans to start Swayman. “And we wanted to see him start a series and see how he’d handle it, and he did really well.”
To Montgomery's point, Swayman came into the club's 2022 series against the Hurricanes with the Bruins down 0-2 and was put in an almost impossible spot last year when he was asked to take the net for Game 7 after serving as Linus Ullmark's backup for the first six games.
Talking with Hockey Night in Canada after the win, Swayman said his reaction to being told that he would start Game 1 was an "about time."
As for what happens next, Montgomery was not willing to comment on his Game 2 starter just yet, but admitted that it would hard to go away from Swayman after his Game 1 performance.
DeBrusk begins postseason with a bang
Hitting the old ‘restart’ button is nothing new for the Bruins’ Jake DeBrusk.
He’s been white hot. And he’s been ice cold. And after what was a definite cold spell to end his regular season, DeBrusk kicked his postseason off with a white-hot bang Saturday night, with two goals and an assist in the Game 1 victory.
"I thought Jake was terrific," Montgomery said. "I thought, the majority of the game, I would say that everybody really executed in the way we want. it was a real good team effort. And that's why I felt we could go wave after wave like we did with all six D and the four lines. Jake was really good. I mean, that third goal, that shot. That's a goal scorer's goal. And it's nice to see him get rewarded for a lot of the hard work he's done all year."
The three-point outing was DeBrusk’s first night of at least three points since a four-point effort against the Sabres back on Mar. 19, 2023, and it was the first three-point game of DeBrusk’s playoff career.
Everything else
- What a difference Pat Maroon makes for Boston's fourth line. It's night and day. This man is made for playoff hockey. Just look at the battle he wins to help jumpstart the two-on-one for Jesper Boqvist and Johnny Beecher. I'm not sure that's a win for the Bruins if they had any of their pre-Maroon in-house options there in that spot.
- If you're looking for some early matchups, it appears that the Bruins are going to stick the Charlie Coyle line and Hampus Lindholm-Brandon Carlo pairing on the Auston Matthews line while the Zacha line and Matt Grzelcyk-Charlie McAvoy pairing draws the Tavares assignment.
- I don't think this was a particularly great night for the Leafs' Ilya Samsonov. But this was a night where it felt like the problems were more in front of him. This Toronto defense really struggles with their breakout passes, and they were getting worn down by Boston's forecheck.
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