There is no denying that the Boston Bruins have been overplaying starting goaltender Jeremy Swayman. In a recent article, I outlined the need for the Bruins to give Swayman a bit more rest as the season progressed and reiterated that if the coaching staff doesn’t trust the backup, there should be a change.
Almost every Bruins fan is in agreement that Marco Sturm made the wrong decision with his goaltenders over the weekend. He argued that the Vancouver Canucks matchup on Saturday was a big game, which was why he started Swayman for the fourth straight game. However, the comment didn’t make much sense, as the second half of the back-to-back was against an Ottawa Senators team that had been dominating Boston.
Of course, Swayman suffered a loss in Saturday’s game against the Canucks, showing signs of fatigue. Then, Korpisalo had an absolutely dreadful performance against the Senators on Sunday, which eventually forced Swayman to play.
It’s easy to look back in hindsight after two straight losses and say Sturm made the wrong decision. However, this was one of those times where Sturm overthought it, and it cost him.
Is the Joonas Korpisalo experiment over for the Bruins?
I’m starting to lean more toward the camp that the Bruins have lost all trust in Korpisalo. He won two straight starts before Swayman’s run of four, but if Sturm did have plenty of trust in him, it’d be shocking for him not to get at least one appearance mixed in amongst there. Sturm has been very blunt with some of his players this season, and he might just want to move forward without Korpisalo.
It isn’t an easy decision. Korpisalo would get through waivers because no team would take a chance on him, and then the Bruins would be paying him a lot of money to be one of their AHL goaltenders. Even worse, once Michael DiPietro returns from his injury, Korpisalo would likely be the backup behind whoever comes from Providence.
If the Bruins were ready to make this move, they’d have to roll with Simon Zajicek as the backup to Swayman. While fans want to see DiPietro with the NHL club, he is battling an injury, and Zajicek makes the most sense since he is waivers-exempt.
The best-case scenario would be for a team to claim Korpisalo and take that number off the Bruins’ books. While the chances of that are incredibly low, it’s getting to the point where no one wants to see him play in Boston for much longer, and the AHL or a waiver claim might be the only option. When you have a save percentage below .893 in each of the two seasons with the Bruins and a 3.63 goals-against average this season, it’s hard to blame the fanbase for having those feelings.