Jeremy Swayman had not started four games in a row all season. Boston Bruins coach Marco Sturm picked an interesting time to try it, and it did not pay off in Saturday’s 5-4 shootout loss to the Vancouver Canucks.
Conventional wisdom would dictate that Swayman and backup Joonas Korpisalo were always going to split this weekend’s two games. Teams rarely start the same goalie on back-to-back nights nowadays.
It seemed like Korpisalo on Saturday and Swayman on Sunday would have been the way to go for several reasons. One, it would have given Swayman an extra day of rest after already making three starts this week. Two, it would have lined up Swayman for the more important divisional game on Sunday against an Ottawa Senators team that is neck-and-neck with Boston in the playoff race. And three, it would have put the Bruins’ better goalie in net for the game teams often need their goalies to step up for, the second leg of a back-to-back.
But Sturm and Bruins goalie coach Bob Essensa decided to go with Swayman on Saturday instead. Asked why after the game, Sturm gave a short answer.
“It was a big game for us, and we thought he would give us the best chance,” he said.
It was a big game, but Sunday’s divisional matchup would seemingly be bigger. It certainly looms large now that the Bruins only mustered one point Saturday and have now lost three of their last four. The Senators will be riding high after a third straight win Saturday, and the Bruins will now almost certainly have to turn to Korpisalo in a big spot.
Swayman looked like a goalie who could have used an extra day against Vancouver. He surrendered four goals on 22 shots. He mishandled a puck behind the net on the Canucks’ second goal, pretty much handing an empty net Linus Karlsson. He got beat on a shot from outside the dots on the third, again by Karlsson.
This loss wasn’t all on Swayman by any means. Or on Sturm, for that matter. There was plenty of sloppiness to go around. Hampus Lindholm lost a battle and turned the puck over on the first goal against. Tanner Jeannot kicked the puck away for a neutral-zone turnover on the third. There was a coverage breakdown off a defensive-zone faceoff on the fourth.
“Going into the third with a one-goal lead, and it just wasn’t a good enough third period for us,” Jeannot said. “Played a little bit too loose, and they made us pay for it.”
There was another questionable decision from Sturm in the shootout. After three scoreless rounds to start, Sturm looked down his bench in the fourth round and turned to… Andrew Peeke. Peeke did score the tying goal late in the third to send the game to overtime in the first place, but that was just the second time in 127 games with the Bruins that Peeke had scored in a non-empty net situation – and even this one hit the post before bouncing off the back of Kevin Lankinen and in. Simply put, Peeke is not a goal-scorer.
Sturm believed Peeke had a shootout move up his sleeve… except Peeke wound up not even using the move Sturm was thinking of.
“We practice all the time. He did that one move and he did it really well,” Sturm said. “Not just once. A few times. I thought he was going to do it again, and he didn’t. That’s why I picked him, so that’s on me.”
The Bruins ultimately went 0-for-7 in the shootout on Saturday, so maybe it wouldn’t have matter who Sturm threw out there. But it was nonetheless odd to see Peeke go fourth while Morgan Geekie, who scored his 25th goal of the season earlier in the game and ranks second in the NHL in goals, had to wait until the seventh round for a chance.
Sturm has gotten a lot right through his first three months as Bruins coach. It’s a major credit to him that this team has jelled the way that it has, persevered through a long list of injuries, and remained in playoff contention.
But it’s fair to question his goaltending plan for this weekend, especially if Korpisalo and the rest of the team can’t find a way to get two points Sunday night.