Is Swayman still a 'foundation rock' for the franchise? Bruins legend Mike Milbury joins and weighs in on Swayman, Zadorov, etc.! #NHL
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00:00What did you make of what Nikita Zadorov said post-game the other night about Jeremy Swayman?
00:05Okay, I want to start at the beginning though, because I thought that Jeremy Swayman was one of the rocks, the foundations of the franchise.
00:16And I've believed that and I still believe that he could be, but right now there's a sizable crack in it.
00:23I don't know what happened.
00:26Perhaps it was a couple things.
00:29I mean, the contract, getting to that was terrible.
00:34It was a mistake by management and then it was a mistake by Swayman who started to talk like it was a businessman and we're going to do this.
00:43The only thing you want in a contract negotiation if you're a player is get the most goddamn money you can.
00:49Don't tell me about your fighting for the union and the future of the players.
00:54Happy horse manure.
00:56I mean, so, you know, this guy was technically sound, concentration, excellent.
01:03I mean, excellent.
01:04Athletic only when necessary.
01:06And that's a good thing because you can't out quick a puck.
01:09So if you have to be athletic and you're falling, there's a scramble.
01:13He had that and he looked like he was going to be the number one goalie for a decade.
01:20And now it's Swiss cheese.
01:24I mean, I don't know why what's happened to him.
01:26Like he's makeable shots, makeable saves are now frustrating for him.
01:32And I can see why, you know, his teammates could be feeling the pressure.
01:40Do you think guys resent the holdout and the money that he got and the fact that he's not playing at the level that he should be based on that money and based on holding out for it?
01:52I'm not in the locker room, but I think there has to be a concern.
01:56I don't know if they like him.
01:58I don't know if he's likeable guy.
02:00And that really that sucks because if you put yourself into a quagmire like that, you better be really good.
02:07We had a goaltender way back when Pete Peters in 1983 was just, he stopped everything.
02:14He was kind of, and I like Pete, don't get me wrong, but he was a different cat from Western Canada and farmland out there.
02:22And who knows what was going through his mind half the time.
02:25But, you know, he talked with a slow drawl, but he stopped the puck.
02:29You can do anything you want if you stop the puck.
02:33But when you stop, you stop being invincible as a goaltender and you start saying stuff that people are questioning or threatening to fight a goaltender from the other end of the ice.
02:43When you really, I don't know what he was doing there, but it was just like ridiculous.
02:47And now I have no idea how this is going to get solved.
02:50I only can hope that the reset button works in September because it needs to work.
02:57If they have to fill this void, you know, corpus hollow has been much better than I thought he would be, but he's not the answer in the long run.
03:04Swayman was supposed to be the answer.
03:06And I think he still can be, but somebody needs to punch him in the nose.
03:10Now, and I'm not talking about Zdorov.
03:12I'm talking about Neely or Sweeney or, or Joe Sacco.
03:16And I'm not getting that.
03:17This guy needs to straighten up, get a spine and, and find out that his teammates are the most important things.
03:24Not with the words that he says, cause I've, I've read the stuff that he said.
03:27It's, it says, you know, I'm all about my black and gold teammates.
03:31Just shut up.
03:32Stop the puck.
03:34Don't you think more than just coaching though, there needs to be a player to get him in line.
03:38Like, is that player, is that player Charlie McAvoy?
03:41Everybody's looking for him.
03:42It's not Nikita Zdorov who can't get out of his own way on a lot of nights.
03:45I mean, he's been a little better lately cause he's hit some people and, but yeah, maybe a player or two, but I don't know if they have a player on that team now.
03:53They can do it.
03:54I don't know that they have a player that has the stature that can do it.
03:58And McAvoy being hurt and, and fairly young.
04:01I don't know, but I do know that it has to be resolved and he has to get back on track.
04:07Or this team now has another problem adding to the myriad of problems that they have already that they have to solve.
04:15But don't players, but don't players, Mike support other players getting money.
04:18Like, isn't that an issue within the room that, that other players would be complaining that if you think Swayman got overpaid?
04:25I mean, I guess, but Allmark got the exact same deal right after.
04:28So my guess is they are happy.
04:30Most players are happy.
04:32He set the market where he did in players like Pasternak and Zdorov would sound like total frauds bitching about a guy getting his max value.
04:39I don't think that the money is, was an issue, but the way he handled the whole negotiations and the, you know,
04:46I'm doing this for the, the brotherhood, that kind of stuff that stuck in my craw.
04:51I thought it was like, just let your agent do the talking and take and sign, you know, get the check and, and put it in the bank.
04:58He didn't need to go through that kind of hullabaloo as far as I was concerned, nearly have to publicly chastise him.
05:04No, he didn't.
05:05And I thought, and I thought from the beginning, they should have signed this guy before they signed Allmark and avoided all this drama.
05:12And it's led to what, you know, it started the snowball rolling and, and it's led to this.
05:18And it's now become a major issue in the clubhouse and on the ice.
05:24Mike, I think one of the biggest things for me where this all went left is what is when guys like Moshan with chiming in on what he was doing for his contract.
05:36And I don't think it's right for any player to question a guy's motives on how he goes to get his money.
05:44And even if it's holdout is hurting your team, getting ready for the season.
05:47And I think a holdout is a player's leverage on him to get his money, but it's about the organization to pay him as fair value.
05:56So there isn't a holdout.
05:57How do you feel like as a player talking about other players money?
06:02It's not good.
06:03It's not positive.
06:05And you know what?
06:06It also speaks to the question, you know, the kind of elephant in the locker room right now is, is this guy not likable?
06:13You know, Moshan doesn't seem like the kind of guy that would go out of his way to like, you know, bitch about a guy looking for extra money.
06:21He just, I, I don't think he wants to be used team player and all that kind of stuff.
06:26And I, and I admit that maybe he stepped out of line here, but I, I'm worried about the fact that this guy is a little bit of a dink.
06:37And you're tied down to him for eight years.
06:39Well, yeah, you are.
06:40You're tied down to him, but you weren't supposed to be tied down to him.
06:43You're supposed to be in bed with him.
06:45And now it looks like a Saturday morning.
06:49Doesn't look so good.
06:52No, I was going to say my, isn't this.
06:54And I say it's clearly, clearly put on the shoulders of Sweeney and Cassidy.
06:59They should have got the deal done long before they were supposed to.
07:03And if they keep trying to do that, but, but if they would have done that, we wouldn't be here.
07:07Well, I'm asking Mike, would the players still be a dink?
07:10Let me ask you this.
07:11Mike, what did DPH or were you there?
07:14Wasn't there a holdout with him?
07:17Yeah.
07:18Well, it's a whole different ball.
07:21He was at the end of his entry level contract.
07:24He was making a million dollars a year and he had played.
07:28Okay.
07:29Not great, but okay.
07:31But he was just an emerging player.
07:32And I thought, okay, we're going to do a bridge contract.
07:35And I thought, okay, a million, two 50, a million, four, whatever it might be.
07:39Sometimes something somewhat reasonable.
07:42So, but the owner, Charles Wong came in and said, you know, I'm going to make him.
07:47I want to make him an offer of a million five, but tell him we're going to, we're going to reduce it by $50,000 a day.
07:53Well, he doesn't take it.
07:54So I, it happened to be Bobby or his company.
07:57There was the, uh, the representative D Pietro.
08:00So I gave him the offer and he was like, they were really not happy.
08:05And so we started to take down the offer day by day, but it was only one day because I was supposed to go to dinner with Charles on the second day after he proposed this affair.
08:16And he said to me before the dinner, he said, we, we signed D Pietro.
08:21I said, we signed D Pietro.
08:24He said, yeah.
08:25He said, well, we signed him.
08:27I signed him.
08:28And I said, how much did we pay him?
08:30And it was like $2 million.
08:32And I said to him, you know, Charles, you just pulled the rug out from underneath my feet.
08:37Who's ever going to believe me.
08:38They're just going to go to you from now on.
08:40That was the end of our relationship.
08:42But.