Swayman, agent 'disappointed', says Bruins never offered $64 million

The contract dispute between the Boston Bruins and restricted free agent Jeremy Swayman reached new levels of controversy on Monday when the goaltender's agent firmly rejected what the team had reportedly offered him.

The 25-year-old Swayman decided not to participate in the Bruins' training camp without a new contract. Coach Jim Montgomery said goaltender Joonas Korpisalo is expected to start the Bruins' season opener against the Florida Panthers on Oct. 8.

At a preseason news conference in Boston on Monday, team president Cam Neely said he believes Swayman wants to play in Boston but that it is “unfortunate” that the deal has not yet been finalized.

“I don’t want to go into too much detail with his question,” he said, “but I know I have 64 million reasons why I would play right now.”

Swayman's agent, Lewis Gross, responded to the Bruins on Monday night by disputing those contract figures while expressing disappointment that the team was discussing it.

“I don’t normally make statements or discuss negotiations through the media,” Gross said in a statement on Instagram. “However, in this case I feel I have to defend my client. At today's press conference the figure was 64 million US dollars. This was the first time this number was discussed in our negotiations. No tangible offer was made prior to the press conference at this level.”

“We are extremely disappointed. That wasn’t fair to Jeremy,” Gross continued. “We will take a few days to discuss what happens next.”

When ESPN's Kristen Shilton contacted Gross' comments, the Bruins responded “respectfully.”

Neely expressed surprise at Swayman's asking price and said he believes Swayman wants to reshape the goaltending market with his contract.

“What his request is and what we think his comp group is are two different things,” Neely said.

Swayman is expected to be the Bruins' primary starting goaltender after they traded goaltender Linus Ullmark to the Ottawa Senators in the offseason. This duo has been the NHL's best tandem over the last three seasons, helping the Bruins to their lowest goals-against average (2.49) in that span. But general manager Don Sweeney said the duo had to be broken up for salary cap and playing time reasons.

“We have decided to chart a course. Both goalkeepers wanted to play 55 games. “That’s not possible when you play on the same team,” Sweeney said of the Ullmark transfer that brought Korpisalo to Boston. “We decided to make a decision. We felt comfortable moving forward with Jeremy. We knew what the likely return for Linus would be.”

Sweeney was criticized for not signing Swayman to a new deal before trading Ullmark, which affected the team's leverage. The general manager said the trade and negotiations were “unrelated” but declined to elaborate on where the discussions with Swayman were taking place at the time of the Ullmark trade.

“I don't regret that decision one bit in terms of the decision we made to move forward and attack some of the areas that we could benefit from in the free agent market,” Sweeney said.

Swayman is entering his fifth NHL season. He has a record of 79-33-15, with a save percentage of .919 and a goals-against average of 2.34.

Swayman earned $3.475 million last season on a one-year contract awarded through arbitration. He chose not to seek arbitration this offseason, and the Bruins declined to take Swayman to arbitration, leaving the decision on his next contract through negotiations between Sweeney and Gross.

The Bruins reportedly offered Swayman an eight-year contract, the maximum contract length allowed by the NHL. There have also been reports that Swayman's camp is seeking an average annual value of more than $9.5 million for his next contract. That would make him, along with Tampa's Andrei Vasilevskiy, the third highest-paid goaltender in the NHL, behind Montreal's Carey Price ($10.5 million) and Florida's Sergei Bobrovsky ($10 million).

Sweeney previously said at Bruins training camp that he expected Swayman to return to the team before Dec. 1, the deadline for his contract to be valid for this season.