The Boston Bruins needed a win Sunday night. Jeremy Swayman needed a night off after making a fourth straight start 24 hours earlier.

The whole team didn’t do nearly enough to get the win, falling 6-2 to the division rival Ottawa Senators. And backup goalie Joonas Korpisalo didn’t do nearly enough to give Swayman a breather, surrendering five goals on 17 shots before coach Marco Sturm pulled him with more than half the game left to be played.

No night off for Swayman. No rest before another big divisional game against the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday. By the time the Bruins get to the three-day Christmas break, Swayman will have played six games in 10 days.

It’s too much. They are risking overworking their most important player, and not being able to trust Korpisalo to ease the workload is part of the problem.

Marco Sturm on pulling Joonas Korpisalo and putting Jeremy Swayman in for his fifth game in eight days:

“I didn’t really want to do that.” pic.twitter.com/nUL0FijJRl

— Scott McLaughlin (@smclaughlin9) December 22, 2025

Earlier in the season, Swayman and Korpisalo were both playing well. Sturm did not need to start Swayman in three straight games, never mind four. In fact, Korpisalo even earned himself back-to-back starts at the end of October.

Since then, however, the gap between the two has widened significantly. Swayman is 11-5-1 since the start of November with a .914 save percentage. Korpisalo is 3-4-0 with an .879 save percentage. Swayman has climbed to fifth in the NHL in goals saved above expected (+16.3), while Korpisalo has slid to 56th out of 61 goalies who have played at least 10 games (-3.7).

Korpisalo hasn’t been bad every time out, to be clear. In fact, he was very good two starts ago when he stopped 37 of 39 shots in a win over St. Louis on Dec. 4. And starting once every 7-10 days isn’t easy. But it’s bit of a chicken-or-the-egg dilemma. Is Korpisalo struggling because he’s playing so infrequently? Or is he playing so infrequently because he’s struggling?

Either way, the fact is that Korpisalo has now allowed four or more goals in four of his last six starts. That just isn’t good enough. There wasn’t much help in front of him Sunday, but there were also a few goals he could’ve done better on.

On Ottawa’s third goal, Fabian Zetterlund beat him short side over the shoulder from a tough angle. On the fourth, Korpisalo couldn’t seem to find a rebound and never got reset despite seemingly having enough time to do so. On the fifth, the last one before he got pulled, he just waved at a Dylan Cozens slapper from the point.

Joonas Korpisalo on getting pulled after five goals on 17 shots: “Obviously I’m not happy. Not happy how I played. You play well, I don’t think you get pulled.” pic.twitter.com/BENHxTS14p

— Scott McLaughlin (@smclaughlin9) December 22, 2025

The Bruins have two goalies playing very well in Providence. Simon Zajicek and Michael DiPietro rank third and fourth in the AHL in save percentage at .934 and .933, respectively.

DiPietro, 26, is much more experienced, now in his sixth AHL season. He even has three games of NHL experience with the Vancouver Canucks. He was expected to draw interest from other teams if he had gotten to free agency this past summer. Zajicek, 24, is in his first year playing in North America after coming over from Czechia.

It may be time for the Bruins to give one of them a look in Boston. That or they need Korpisalo to get his game back in form, quickly.

If the Bruins want to be a playoff team this season – and that is their goal internally – they need more from the backup goalie position. They don’t have enough margin for error to overcome subpar play there, and they don’t want to thrust Swayman into a workhorse, 60-plus starts kind of role if they can avoid it. Statistically, he has always been better when he’s kept to two or three straight starts instead of four or five in a row.

Barring something unforeseen, Swayman, with no rest in a week and a half, will be back in net for Tuesday’s showdown with Montreal. Then the Bruins will get a much-needed three-day break. After that, they’ll need a better plan for handling their No. 1 goalie’s workload.

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