Report: Jeremy Swayman & Bruins Could Settle On Bridge Deal

Now that the calendar has flipped to September, Boston Bruins fans may or may not be getting a bit nervous that top goaltender Jeremy Swayman remains an unsigned restricted free agent. But the two sides are obviously not on the same page, or a deal would have been struck by now.

Swayman is the only player on the roster left without a contract, and the Bruins have $8.64 million in available cap space. Does this mean that his demands are north of that? We heard rumors last week, albeit unsubstantiated at this point, that the Swayman camp might be looking at an AAV number that starts with a 10.

Now, according to a report by Paul Dupont of the Boston Globe, it appears that a bridge deal is looking more and more likely:

Given that the Bruins have yet to use Swayman as a full-time No. 1, they are looking to ink him to a bridge deal, one of maybe 3-4 years, scaled up from his $3.475 million of last season. The number could be, say, $22 million-$24 million if stretched to four years, at which point he then would be eligible to become an unrestricted free agent at age 29.

Taking the midpoint of Dupont's projection, $23 million, that would be a $5.75 million AAV over four years.

What a bridge deal does is allow Swayman to base his next contract demands on the soon-to-be record-setting extension numbers of Igor Shesterkin with the New York Rangers.

The mistake the Bruins made in all this, of course, was trading away Linus Ullmark and handing the job to Swayman outright before they had the younger goalie locked up to a new deal.

Swayman has split time with Ullmark the past three seasons, and has developed at a tremendous rate, to where he's now one of the top young goalies in the league. But he has yet to be the true No. 1 for a full season, topping out at 43 starts last year (and then taking over for the playoffs, starting 12 of 13 games). He has a career .919 save percentage and a 2.34 goals-against average.

Bruins veterans are scheduled to report to camp on Sept. 15, so time is of the essence.