NHL Network: David Pagnotta on NHL Tonight discussing Boston Bruins RFA goaltender Jeremey Swayman.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Jamison Coyle: “Still have some very notable RFAs yet to sign. Let’s start with the biggest one in Boston right now, their goaltender, Jeremy Swayman. What is the latest there?
Pagnotta: “Well, they’re still having conversations on a pretty regular basis. It certainly seemed like there was a huge gap with respect to the dollars. I don’t know if it’s, I think they’ve made a little bit of headway, at least in an understanding of the frame of where this is going to end up.
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But a lot of it still depends on term. The more term he gets, the higher the AAV is going to be.
They moved out Linus Ullmark to Ottawa at the end of June because they thought, not only did they want to capitalize on that potential deal, but also they wanted to make sure that they would have him locked in. Swayman, that is locked in. He wants competitive value.
A lot of these guys, all of these RFAs, want competitive value. When we look at the board right there, you see some of the other top tier goaltenders in the National Hockey League, and what they’re looking at, dollar wise, he wants to be kind of Hellebuyck and up. He wants to be up well, well over that range.
So, you know, he went into the nines-plus. They went into the sixes. And you’ve got to still find a way to kind of bridge that. They’ve got to get there. There’s still work to be done on a lot of different fronts of the RFAs.
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But with respect to Boston and Jeremy Swayman’s camp, I think you taking a little bit of positivity knowing that the lines of communication are still open. But hey, camps get going this week.
