Bruins president Cam Neely dropped the gloves Monday, claiming in a start-of-season press conference that Boston had offered restricted free agent goalie Jeremy Swayman a $64 million contract.
“I don’t want to get into the weeds on what his ask is, but I know that I’d have 64 million reasons why I’d be playing right now,” Neely said.
The comment was seemingly designed to both push back against suggestions that the Bruins had low-balled Swayman and to put more public pressure on Swayman and his agent.
Well, now Swayman’s side is fighting back. His agent, Lewis Gross, released a statement Monday night refuting Neely’s comments, saying that $64 million had never been offered before Monday.
“Normally, I do not release statements or discuss negotiations through the media,” Gross wrote. “However, in this case, I feel I need to defend my client. At today’s press conference, $64 million was referenced. This was the first time that number was discussed in our negotiations. Prior to the press conference, no offer was made reaching that level.
“We are extremely disappointed. This was not fair to Jeremy. We will take a few days to discuss where we go from here.”
Obviously, this is all around just not an encouraging development. Negotiating through the media is bad enough; publicly calling each other liars is just about rock bottom in a situation like this.
It’s hard to imagine any reason why Neely would lie about something like this. He is generally a straight shooter. His comment was not ambiguous. He went out of his way to say something about the negotiations, interjecting after a question to general manager Don Sweeney to make it known that he was “surprised” by the number Swayman was asking for. When asked if he could share any details about the offers on the table, he could have simply said no, but instead volunteered the $64 million figure.
There is also no ambiguity in Gross’s statement. He is straight-up calling Neely a liar. Swayman may have needed to sign off on Gross responding like this. An already contentious situation has now taken a hard turn for the ugly.
It will be fascinating to see where this goes next. It clearly does not seem like there is going to be any kind of agreement on a contract any time soon.
Neely also said Monday that he asked Swayman directly if he wants to be a Bruin, and Swayman said yes. It seems fair to wonder if this blowup might change that.
The Bruins begin the regular season next Tuesday in Florida. Joonas Korpisalo will be Boston’s No. 1 goalie for the time being, with Brandon Bussi presumably backing him up. Swayman would need to sign a contract by Dec. 1 in order to be eligible to play this season.
UPDATE: Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman provided some insight later Monday night. The whole article is worth a read, but here are a few key takeaways:
-Friedman thinks the Bruins' offer was $60-62 million, but not quite $64 million. He adds that "Swayman/Gross probably aren’t as annoyed about the number itself as they are about it being mentioned in the first place," and that Neely may have been saying that $64 million is the absolute max that Boston is willing to go to.
-Friedman says he heard rumors in recent weeks of a possible trade, but that the Bruins told teams they were not considering trading Swayman. He wonders if Swayman is now seriously considering a trade request after Monday's events.
-Friedman ultimately comes to the conclusion that where this goes from here is up to Swayman, who now needs to decide if his desire to be a Bruin outweighs all this ugliness, or if there is too much bitterness to overcome and he's ready to move on.
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