Is Jeremy Swayman worth his new contract? There's one surefire way he can answer that

Is Jeremy Swayman worth $8.25 million per year for the next eight years? We could go through the list of both statistical and financial comparisons and try to figure out if Swayman is worth the same amount of money as Ilya Sorokin, or more money than Juuse Saros, or slightly less money than Connor Hellebuyck.

We could debate what kind of stats Swayman needs to have, how many games he needs to start, where he needs to finish in Vezina Trophy voting, and whether he needs to win that trophy at some point in the next few years.

That exercise feels kind of pointless though, doesn't it? Because here in Boston, there's really just one standard that any highly-paid athlete is held to: a championship standard. Win a title, and most fans and media here aren't going to care what your salary is. Ask Celtics fans if they think Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown are overpaid right now. But if you don't win, prepare to face criticism regardless of what else you accomplish. Ask Vezina winner and winningest goalie in Bruins history Tuukka Rask about that.

Is it a fair standard? Maybe not. Most reasonable fans can agree that an athlete can individually live up to his contract even if the team around him is never good enough to win it all.

But Boston fans aren't exactly known for being reasonable. We lived through the era of Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and David Ortiz and got spoiled. We've watched our four major teams combine for 13 championships in the last 24 years. Even as the Patriots and Red Sox have fallen apart in recent years, the Celtics kept the bar raised by winning banner 18 four months ago.

The Bruins are now the only one of the four still stuck on one title during this magical two-and-a-half-decade run. 2011 was unforgettable, but it was also 13 years ago. Bruins fans are ready for another Stanley Cup. They watched teams they thought were capable come up just short in 2013 and 2019, and then watched the best regular-season team they've ever seen come up way short in 2023.

Swayman was not a part of the 2011, 2013 or 2019 teams. He was a part of the 2023 team, but was still playing the 1B to Linus Ullmark's 1A in net. With the third-biggest contract in Bruins history – and the biggest ever for a Boston goalie – now in hand, Swayman will be expected to be a big part of the franchise's next Cup team.

While Brad Marchand remains captain until he decides to retire, one look at Boston's highest salaries tells you who the next era of Bruins hockey is being built around: David Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy, and now Swayman.

When Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci retired prior to last season, McAvoy stated plainly that, "This next chapter in Bruins history is going to be written by us," referring to himself, Pastrnak and the rest of the team's 20-something core. When asked at the start of this year's training camp what areas he still wants to improve on as a player, Pastrnak responded simply, "I want to win the Cup."

During his Sunday press conference after signing his new contract, Swayman sounded like someone who now has that same one-track mind.

"I think the motivation is a Stanley Cup, through and through," Swayman said when asked if he felt motivated to live up to his contract or prove anyone wrong. "That's all I care about. … I can guarantee you that this step in this chapter of my career is going to motivate me above and beyond what I have done before. And again, the end goal is to win a Stanley Cup, and I believe that this is a group that can do it and have shots at it many years. Every year I'm a part of it, I'm gonna make sure that's a reality."

Much had been made recently about what motivates Swayman. He had said on the "Shut Up Marc" podcast in August that part of his motivation in contract negotiations was to not "ruin the goalie market for other guys that are gonna be in my shoes down the line." That led some to accuse Swayman of caring more about helping other goalies financially than his own team.

Amazon's new "Faceoff: Inside the NHL" series revealed this past week that Swayman was still using last summer's contentious arbitration hearing – something he brought up numerous times throughout the season – as motivation during the playoffs, referencing a list of criticisms he had heard from team management. That led some to criticize Swayman as soft, or focused on the wrong thing, or unable to separate the business from the personal.

Add in the shift in public opinion that occurred this past week after Bruins president Cam Neely revealed that the team had offered an eight-year, $64 million contract (which may not have technically been on the table before Neely said it), and Swayman has already gotten a crash course on how quickly this market can turn on someone who was universally loved just months earlier after his excellent postseason.

And that all brings us back to how Swayman will ultimately be judged. If he doesn't perform in future postseasons, fans and media will call him overpaid and the criticism will get louder. Those who believe you don't need a highly paid goalie to win the Cup and that the money could better be spent elsewhere on the roster will consider themselves vindicated.

But there's also the other path. If Swayman builds off this spring, when he was legitimately the best goalie in the playoffs, leads the Bruins on deeper runs, and eventually helps bring the Cup back to Boston, he will become a legend and no one around here will care what his cap hit is or how long contract negotiations took or what he uses for motivation.