Boston Bruins

Good News For Hugging Duo Ullmark And Swayman

Published

4 months ago

January 13, 2024

The goaltending news was good all around for the Boston Bruins on Saturday.

Bruins goalie Linus Ullmark was back on the ice just four days after suffering what looked like a potential long-term injury, and hugging partner Jeremy Swayman, was named a 2024 NHL All-Star via the Fan Vote.

While the news on Swayman and the honor was well-deserved, the more promising and important news was that Ullmark appears to have escaped a serious injury after being helped off the ice in overtime of the Bruins’ 4-3 loss to the Arizona Coyotes this past Tuesday night.

“It felt better, I would say. …it didn’t feel as bad as I expected, but also didn’t feel as good as I wanted to,” the 2023 Vezina Trophy winner told reporters after his team’s game-day skate in St. Louis ahead of their game with the St. Louis Blues tonight (8:08 p.m. ET).

“It’s kind of hard to pick and choose. There wasn’t a lot of high-speed scoring chances…just doing some things at the end to see how it felt, but pleased for now, at least. We’ll take it day by day. There’s nothing wrong with playing through some aches and pains and bruises as long as you’re not stupid and lie to yourself that you’re fine, but you’re injured.”

Linus Ullmark acknowledged that he was pretty nervous and fearful in the moments following the injury on Tuesday night but MRI imaging confirmed that there was no serious damage.

“I recognized the pain from some stuff that I’ve done in the past, so I knew it was pretty severe at the time, but I didn’t know how severe,” he told the media. “Also, you feel guilty. Your conscience is not in the right place…that you put your partner in that position and your team in that position, so it’s never a situation that you’re happy with it. Everything looked good on the images, which is nice. You never want an MRI done and see that something is torn or it’s a severe injury. I was very happy with that. We’ll build off of it and do what we need to do moving forward.

The athletic trainers that we have and [physical therapists] and doctors, I love every single one of them, and I trust every single one of them. I feel like we can really build off of this and get stronger.”

As for the goalie who replaced him in overtime on Tuesday night and, who was set to start a second-straight game on Saturday night, Jeremy Swayman will make his first-ever NHL All-Star appearance on Feb. 2-3 in Toronto. Swayman was one of 12 players selected for the game via the 2024 NHL All-Star Fan Vote, which gave fans the opportunity to vote for their favorite players online and via X (formerly Twitter).

The 6-foot-3, 195-pound, 25-year-old goaltender, whom the Boston Bruins drafted in the fourth round (111th) of the 2017 NHL Entry Draft, is 11-3-7 with a 2.47 goals against average and a .920 save percentage with two shutouts.