Bruins’ Jeremy Swayman: ‘Nobody Respects Us’
Immediately following the NHL trade deadline, Jeremy Swayman and the Boston Bruins won back-to-back games against two Eastern Conference powerhouses: the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers.
After that, the Bruins’ mini-surge and energetic boost has appeared to have evaporated, and Boston has been outscored 12-5 in its last two games. Swayman also started those two games and took the loss in both, most recently with an “embarrassing” and “unacceptable” effort against the Lightning on Saturday.
In the 6-2 loss, the Bruins were outshot 39-12 in the contest, including a 20-0 second period. Swayman tried his best to keep Boston in the game, turning aside 33 of the 37 shots he faced between the pipes.
“It’s tough to see shots that are deflected twice off a player,” Swayman told reporters after the loss, per team-provided video. “I think every goal had some sort of deflection and ended up on their tape. … You really can’t dwell on it. You just have to move forward, and that was the mindset tonight. It was just any shot I was going to see, I was going to stop, and if it deflected, I wanted to make sure I’m in the way of it.”
Despite the disastrous second period, which saw the fans boo the team off the ice, Swayman is not ready to give up on the Bruins and their chances of making the postseason.
“I know that we have something in her that’s special,” Swayman said. “I’m going to keep pushing on them and try and lead and try to get these guys going as much as I can and do my job. I know that it’ll follow, and when we get momentum, it’s pretty hard to play against us. We just have to stick to our identity.
“Nobody respects us, and that’s something that we need to get behind, and I think that we can do it. … I know that we have something special in here to be successful, and we don’t get results. That’s frustrating. We just have to keep ourselves to a standard that has been met every game, and that’s something that we need to work on.”
Swayman added: “It’s a standard led by example, and that’s all that we can do. The guys that have been in here for a while, seeing the right guys do it, that’s what we’re here for. It’s been my job, it’s been all these other guys’ jobs that have been here, and seeing the right leaders do it, to continue the standard that’s built here. We’re not going to let it slip on our watch.”