6-5 shootout loss<\/a>, with the whole hockey world watching, Swayman got his wish.<\/p>\nHe just would have preferred to pick his opponent a little more judiciously.<\/p>\n
Not only was he giving up an inch and about 30 pounds to Andrei Vasilevskiy, he didn\u2019t know that the Tampa goalie was a lefty. Swayman took a few more shots than he gave out before losing his balance, ending the brief tilt that had the entire stadium buzzing.<\/p>\n
\u201cFighting the biggest, toughest goalie in the league probably wouldn\u2019t be my first choice, but I got the first one out of the way. I\u2019ll probably retire after that,\u201d said Swayman, who admitted he was surprised by Vasilevskiy\u2019s southpaw stance. \u201cI\u2019m glad we both had our first gig against each other. A really worthy opponent.\u201d<\/p>\n
It started when Brandon Hagel jammed at a loose puck in Swayman\u2019s pads in the midst of the Lightning\u2019s comeback in the second period. Both Swayman and Charlie McAvoy knocked Hagel to the ice. With his counterpart involved in the scrum, Vasilevskiy\u2019s instinct was to skate toward the beef. Swayman had to get rid of Hagel\u2019s stick that was tucked behind his left pad and then reminded Vasilevskiy to take off his mask before the the two got it on.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the biggest moments for me personally,\u201d said Vasilevskiy, which means a little something coming from a two-time Stanley Cup winner.<\/p>\n
After the bout, Vasilevskiy patted Swayman on the side of the head in a friendly gesture.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wanted to win and so did I. That\u2019s game respecting game. We see fights every single game and just got that one out of the way,\u201d said Swayman.<\/p>\n
After blowing a four-goal lead in the loss, the B\u2019s locker room was a tad somber. But the best way to lighten the mood was to ask about the goalie fight. The players enjoyed it as much as the fans.<\/p>\n
Young Matt Poitras lit up when asked about the goalie fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never seen anything like that,\u201d said Poitras. \u201cThat\u2019s probably the craziest game I\u2019ve ever been a part of, to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n
David Pastrnak was seen jumping up and down on the bench as the fight was going on.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, it was fun to see,\u201d said Pastrnak. \u201cObviously it was a hell of a game for the fans and entertaining. Good for hockey. But for us as players, we left two big points here, or one. Unfortunately we didn\u2019t get it done.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was not the kind of game that the losing coach would enjoy much, but Marco Sturm could appreciate the value in it all.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was pretty entertaining, wasn\u2019t it?\u201d Sturm said. \u201cThis game had pretty much everything, right? Unfortunately, we\u2019re on the wrong side but what a start. We down from the fastest goal against probably (11 seconds in), come back, had the lead, they come back, goalie fight, what else do you want? Overall it was just a good show today, Sway having the goalie fight. They hugged it our after the game so everything\u2019s good.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA \u2014 Ever since he came into the National Hockey League, Jeremy Swayman has not kept it a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5105],"tags":[243,95,53920,5,2385,156,189,4,540,92,5168,5167],"class_list":{"0":"post-441293","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-lightning","8":"tag-andrei-vasilevskiy","9":"tag-boston-bruins","10":"tag-goalie-fights","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-hockey-fights","13":"tag-jeremy-swayman","14":"tag-lightning","15":"tag-nhl","16":"tag-tampa-bay","17":"tag-tampa-bay-lightning","18":"tag-tampabay","19":"tag-tampabaylightning"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116000749466959628","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}