TSN Hockey Insider Chis Johnston Joined Toronto Radio on Monday to discuss the situation between Jeremy Swayman and the Boston Bruins and suggests the Bruins put the pressure and heat on Swayman to resolve this quickly.
NHLRumors.com Transcriptions
Jamie McLennan: “Talk about feel good or not feel good. What do you make of Sea Bass’s (Cam Neely) comments in Boston? He didn’t seem very happy and, and, you know, the Swagman camp; what do you make of that whole situation?”
Chris Johnston: “I mean, clearly it’s, it’s hard to read into anything, but everything that was said today, in totality, was designed to put a little heat on Jeremy Swayman In the situation.
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Obviously the Bruins feel they made a pretty strong offer. And it’s unusual in today’s day and age that you have someone in Cam Neely’s position go sort of, it was public, but, I mean, was not hard to read between the lines to suggest, you know what he says the Bruins have been offering, in this case, to Jeremy Swayman.
You also had Jim Montgomery coming out saying Korpisalo is going to start for the moment, opening night, you’ve got Charlie Jacobs mentioning this as a team that spends for the cap. I mean, it felt as though they were trying to apply some pressure. And that’s, that’s all a team can do it in this sort of circumstance.
If they really are going to hold to their number, if they’re not going to move a little bit more in Swayman’s direction. And, I’ll tell you, I just get the feeling with this guy, that it speaks a lot, even though we’re at this stage, and that he’s the last remaining RFA unsigned in the league.
I really believe he’s the kind of player that’s going to stick to his guns, that isn’t going to buckle under this kind of pressure. But I think the stakes were raised with that press conference today (Monday), and so even the mere fact that you had those gentlemen speaking at the podium, it was only 12 days ago, Don Sweeney was available to start camp.
I mean, a little bit inside media thing here. But even unusual, just to have, you know, in that quick a succession, you know, to roll out some of the top people in your organization to feel these kind of questions, and especially when you have a, you know, a franchise type of player, player that potential, that that’s in a contract situation with a team.
Who has more leverage: Jeremy Swayman or the Boston Bruins?
I mean, they’re certainly trying to put some heat on them, I would suggest, and we’ll see if, we’ll see if it yields the results, because we’re not going to far really here from the start of the season. And you know when, when the stakes will get raised even further, if it’s not signed.”
As we found out later on Monday, Lewis Gross, Jeremy Swayman’s agent, was not phased by the pressure or heat of the situation when he released a statement countering Neely’s comments.
The pressure and deadlines could be the only things that pressure contract negotiations to resolve. But it could take a while before this gets resolved.
