August is usually the quietest month on the hockey calendar, and that is true for the Bruins right now as well. David Pastrnak got married in Croatia over the weekend and a bunch of his current and former teammates were there, but actual hockey news has by and large gone on summer vacation.
The only problem there is that Bruins fans are anxiously awaiting one big piece of news: a contract extension for Jeremy Swayman. The 25-year-old goalie remains a restricted free agent, and any updates regarding the state of negotiations have slowed to a trickle.
So, should anyone be concerned that this whole situation is still dragging on? Some fans on social media certainly are, but NESN’s Andrew Raycroft is not.
“No level of concern,” Raycroft said on the latest episode of WEEI’s The Skate Podcast (listen above). “Everybody's gone, right? The hockey world, everybody is gone since July 7, when that development camp shut down, the last one in the league. Everybody is gone. I’m around some hockey people this week, and no one's thinking or talking about business. … I don’t think anyone’s really too concerned about anything.”
When would it be time to start worrying then? Razor says to give it a month.
“There's really no reason for fans to be worried about a contract until, I would even say September,” Raycroft said. “September 1 is maybe you can start thinking or talking about it, and even then they have two weeks [until training camp starts]. This is going to take two phone calls, really, at the end of the day. Jeremy can't really go anywhere. He has to sign, he has to play, he has to make a lot of money, and the Bruins have to pay him a lot of money. So, I think at the end of the day, it'll be a couple days of phone calls, they'll get it hashed out, and he'll be playing on opening night.”
The Bruins open training camp on Sept. 18. It wouldn’t be surprising at all if the deal doesn’t get done until a week or two before then, when everyone’s finally back in town and back in work mode for the new season.
If for some reason this does end up lingering long enough that it turns into a holdout-like situation – which would definitely be cause for concern – it’s worth noting that Swayman would need to be signed before Dec. 1 or he would become ineligible to play this season.
We also talked to Razor about Swayman handling a bigger workload this season, what to expect from new backup Joonas Korpisalo, and how Brandon Bussi can break through. Listen to the full interview at the top of this post.