Are We Higher or Lower on David Pastrnak, Jeremy Swayman, and Charlie McAvoy After 2024-25?

Are We Higher or Lower on David Pastrnak, Jeremy Swayman, and Charlie McAvoy After 2024-25?

After a down season for the Boston Bruins, are we higher or lower on the three core players, David Apostern, Jeremy Swayman, and Charlie Makavoy. You’re Locked on Bruins, your daily podcast on the Boston Bruins, part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. What is up Bruins fans and welcome back to the Locked On Boston Bruins podcast. I’m your host Ian McLaren and this is a daily show where we discuss all things spoke B. Today is Wednesday, May 14th. Thank you so much for making Lockdown Bruins your first listen every day. It’s part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. on the podcast. Today we are going to discuss the three core players for this team, one at each position, David Apostern, Jeremy Swayman, and Charlie Makavoy, and assess whether I’m higher or lower on them than I was this time last year. Before we get into all that, a quick reminder. You can find the podcast on social media, locked in Bruins. That’s on X, Blue Sky, Instagram, even Tik Tok these days. And you can find me, my hockey thoughts and dad jokes, Ian C McLaren. I am a lifelong Boston Bruins fan, and I’ve been covering this team and the NHL at large for various outlets for about 20 years now. Quick note off the top, there is seemingly some traction between the Boston Bruins and Rick Tocket in the search for a new head coach. Apparently, he’s high on their list, but he may not be able to command the kind of contract that he’s looking for from these Bruins. That was according to Elliot Freeman. Uh, and I saw this morning on X that uh, Jay Woodcraftoft is apparently a top candidate as well, formerly of the Edmonton Oilers. So, just a quick note there, update on the coaching search. But today, we’re talking about Boston’s three most important players and whether we are higher or lower on them than we were at this point last year. And let’s start with the obvious. David Posternok. I’m definitely higher on him, which seems crazy because we’re already so high on him heading into this season, but he somehow managed to raise the ceiling even more. He hit 106 points, 43 goals, 63 assists, and led the NHL in scoring for a good stretch, including a ridiculous January that earned him first star of the month honors. He even set a Bruins record by factoring in on 13 straight goals. And even with the team’s overall struggles, Posternok was elite, consistent, and absolutely electric. Now, he did start off the season a bit slow and that may have been the remnants of a injury that was suffered at the World Championships last spring and which caused him to miss out on his regular uh training regimen over the summer and perhaps not come into training camp as optimized as he could have been. And that certainly was a factor in the team getting off to a slow start, the power play struggling early, Jim Montgomery ultimately being uh let go. But after that, he just went on a complete tear. And the thing that makes me go higher on him especially is not the goal scoring. In fact, his goal total was down from last season. and well down from his careerhigh of 61, 18 fewer goals, but he had only seven fewer points than his careerhigh after managing 63 assists. And everydayers will remember, I’ve touched on this already, that he led NHL in scoring at five on five this season where the majority of the game is played, leading the entire NHL. If the Bruins power play had any modicum of success this regular season, the Bruins not only would have been closer to a playoff team, but Dave Apostern would have been well entrenched in the heart trophy conversation as league MVP. I thought he had an outside chance at getting some love for the Ted Lindsay Trophy, which is awarded to the most outstanding player as voted on by the the NHLPA. Didn’t happen, but still he was one of the best players in the NHL this season and without a supporting cast that he is used to. Last season, his first in the post Berseron Creeche era, he had 110 points, 47 goals, 63 assists, and that was with Charlie Coyle and Pavl Zaka getting career years. This season, both of those guys fell off. And while Zaka remained on a line with Posternok for the majority of the season, what impressed me the most was how Post was able to elevate the game of Morgan Geeki, who had a career-high 33 goals, just 10 fewer than Posterno. And yeah, he had the elevated shooting percentage, but it was partly because a Pasta was drawing some attention, but also because Pasta when he had the puck was able to feed Geeki some tap-ins and fantastic scoring chances regularly. And for him to get a career-high 63 assists playing with Morgan Geeki, Pavle Zaka, like no disrespect to those guys, but to rack up those assists and the majority of them a league leading five on five assists and points is pretty special for David Postnock. And it shows you that he is not just a passenger. It doesn’t matter who he’s playing with. he can elevate the game of his linemates, whoever they are, and that is the making of a special player. Like you look at what Mico Rantin is doing right now with the Dallas Stars in the Stanley Cup playoffs, and there was so many questions about whether he would be able to succeed away from Nathan McKinnon. He’s not only succeeding, but he is a Consite Trophy favorite right now because he is in on the majority of Dallas’s goals during the playoffs. He’s just been on fire. That’s the kind of player that David Postno has been this past season for the Boston Bruins and the player that he continues to be at the World Championships trying to defend the gold medal that Czecha earned last year where Pasta recorded seven goals, three assists for 10 points in seven games. So far, he’s up to six points, two goals, four assists in three games for Czecha, and he’s wearing an A as the team’s assistant captain or alternate captain, which uh is pretty impressive uh that he’s getting that leadership role, leading the team in scoring, and really, yeah, helping what’s not typically seen as a superpower on an international level. They only have three players up front and now defense that play in the NHL. Their goalies are NHL ready. Dan Vadar, Carell Vla, but they only have Phil Bronnik, Martin Nes, David Spotrick, Jacob Lalco, and Adam Klka, who has yet to play for them uh as guys affiliated in the NHL. So, all that to say, Dave Aposterno, his ceiling was already skyhigh and he is on the penthouse on the needle of a tower attached to the top of a condo building like officially higher on him than I was in October. And that certainly is saying something. What about with regards to Jeremy Swayman and Charlie Makavoy? two other guys that I consider to be core players of this team. We’ll discuss them here as the podcast continues. Are you looking for a snack that is both nutritious and delicious? Crack into a good source of protein with Wonderful Pistachios. Wonderful Pistachios is one of the highest protein nuts. Each 1oz serving has six gram of protein, giving you over 10% of your daily value. Plus, they’re packed with fiber and better for you unsaturated fats to help keep you feeling fuller longer. My wife and I are big fans of giving our 12-year-old high energy picky eater boy these wonderful pistachios. He is such a huge fan and it’s a great source of protein for him while he’s playing Fortnite. He can just grab the noshells variety. Perfect grabandgo snack. But if you love cracking into every shell for that satisfying crunch, the inshell options are also a classic favorite. Get snacking. Get cracking with the snack that packs a protein punch. Visit wonderfulpistachios.com to learn more. That’s wonderful pistachios.com. Thank you so much again for making Lockdown Bruins part of your daily routine. available on your favorite podcast app and on YouTube. Every day already know that the best way to keep on top of things is to subscribe on your favorite podcast app. Subscribe on YouTube, hit that like button, and also hit that bell so that you are notified when a new episode drops. Today we’re talking about David Posnock, Jeremy Swayman, Charlie Makavoy, and whether we are higher or lower on them than we were this time last season, even in October after the 2024 25 regular season. This was supposed to be Jeremy Suman’s first year as the undisputed number one goalie. There were some bright spots. Four shutouts, a 43 save game against the Tampa Bay Lightning. The overall numbers tell a bit of a concerning story. A sub 900 save percentage, 304 goals against average, and major inconsistency from game to game. He was lights out in some wins, extremely shaky in some losses. And there’s every reason to be a bit lower on him based on this season alone than we were coming into it. Last summer was a mess for the Boston Bruins altogether. There were so many things that were off, went wrong, and the highlight of that was the extremely long contract stalemate between the Bruins and Swayman. Like when they traded Lenus Olmark to the Ottawa Senators during the Stanley Cup final last year, it made sense that they would have already had a deal in place for Swayman like right at that point. If you’re going if you’re confident enough to trade all for, let’s be honest, not the greatest return. Mark Castelick, a first round pick that ended up being Dean Lorno and Ununis Corbasalo taking on 75% of his contract that carries for the Bruins 3 million for the next three seasons from now. If you’re making that move, you have to have Swayman kind of already in the bag when it comes to his contract. Instead, they let it drag out all summer into training camp and it culminated in a very testy press conference where Cam Neely basically outed the Bruins offer and said, “This guy has 64 million reasons why he should be signed in training camp and getting ready for the regular season.” And this came after Jeremy Swayman was quite public about wanting to reset the goldie market uh for not wanting to accept below market value despite the fact that he had not yet been a bonafide kind of two out of every three game starter in the at the NHL level. And that threw things off. It caused him to miss training camp. He came in kind of cold despite having some training regimens in the offseason and he was just never really able to find a groove. And there were arguments to be made that Corbos indeed should have been starting more regularly than Jeremy Swayman. So I’m a bit lower on him than I was coming in. Having said that, there’s still every reason to believe that Jeremy Swayman can be a legit number one goalie at the NHL level. Like, he’s still fairly young. It was his first season without Lenus Allar around since he had joined the team. And it takes some time for players to get acclimated to new new situations, right? Losing Omar, having Corposal come in um threw him off a bit. And to not be immediately rewarded for his strong play so far in his career, I’m sure that uh threw things off a bit as well. Uh the long and short of it though is that Jeremy Swayman, only 26 years old, and despite his 892 save percentage this season, he still has very good numbers at the NHL level. And it’s still a situation where he could very much rebound quickly and um become that guy again like and it won’t take much because the bar right now is is on the floor. Uh he is at the world championship right now playing for team USA. Uh he had a 13 save shutout over Hungary the other day. Not, you know, the greatest level of competition, but still it’s good to get that confidence up. It’s good to play meaningful games at the World Championship. He is in tandem with Joey Dord over there who’s getting the lion share of the starts. But if the court falters, Swayman can step up. Look, he’s still young. Based on this season alone, I am a bit lower on him than I was coming in, but I still think that he is able to like if we’re doing higher or lower at this point next year. ideally were much higher because they’re in the playoffs and still Jeremy Swayman is getting back to the level of play that he showed in last year’s postseason where he posted a 933 save percentages in 12 games against the Toronto Maple Leafs and against the Florida Panthers. That’s the kind of guy like that was just one year ago that that was happening. Do we think that all of a sudden Jeremy Swayman fell off to the point where that’s just gone? I don’t think so. Get home from the world, get some rest, get your regular offseason training going. There’s no contract drama to deal with this summer. Come into training camp. Be all business. Work hard from day one. and work with goalie coach Bob Essensa to rediscover the magic that was there in the past and hopefully turn things around so that you’re in the conversation for the Vzna Trophy in 2026. It’s very possible. Now, a lot of that hinges, of course, on team defense, health. The Bruins played without Hamus Lindholm for the majority of the season. They were without Charlie Makavoy for a good chunk of the season. We’ll talk about him coming up. The change from Jim Montgomery to Joe Sacko that messed things up as well with the new system, new voice. It just was a right off season in so many ways. And hopefully we can look back at the end of Jeremy Swayman’s career and see this as a blip instead of the new norm for him in net. Now, what about Charlie Makavoy? Let’s discuss whether we are lower or higher on the franchise defenseman here as the podcast continues. All right. Higher or lower, Charlie Makavoy? In reality, I’d say I’m about the same, perhaps a bit lower, but it’s tough to evaluate his year fully because of the shoulder injury that ended his season after 50 games. Uh, this of course came up at the Four Nations faceoff where he suffered a grade five AC joint separation in the first game against Finland. He played against Canada and he looked unreal in that game. Leveling Cydney Crosby, leveling Conor McDavid. However, playing in that game and whatever treatment he received led to an infection, a lengthy hospitalization, and ultimately ended his season after just 50 games. And at the end of the year, you could see that he was quite bothered by all of this. It really took a toll on his mental health as well. He had just welcomed a new baby into the world like a week before the Four Nations. So being down and out with this infection, not being able to play, not being able to be a peak dad during those very early days really affected him. Before the season, Makavoy was expected to be a cornerstone of the Bruins defense. The injury not only limited his contributions, but also exposed the team’s defensive vulnerabilities. today. And if you’re without your top dude defenseman for a large part of the season, I don’t care what team you are, um, it’s going to hurt. So, his health and his ability to return to form will be crucial for the Bruins moving forward. He finished with just 23 points in 50 games, a career low pace. So, he was a reliable top pair of defenseman, logged heavy minutes, but the offense wasn’t there. and the uh keeping him on the top power play unit early on in this season when things weren’t clicking really uh hurt this team as well. We know he’s able to control the game at both ends of the ice. We’d like to see more offensive output from him. Everydayers will remember I’ve discussed on this podcast what it would take for Charlie Makavoy to really be a staple in the Norish Trophy conversation. And it requires these days largely someone who solid defensively but who puts up like point per game or better numbers offensively. I I don’t think Makavoy has that in him. Um, I think he could elevate his point production to like 50, maybe 60 points, but 80 and above, I think that’s going to be a real stretch, especially considering he’s not that strong as a power play quarterback. It’s a low mark this season, 23 points for a guy expected to be a two-way force. So, I’m about the same on him, but he has to bring more offensive punch if he’s going to be a true number one defenseman on a Stanley Cup contender. Uh would definitely like to see more offense in his game. Uh whether it’s deferring to others, whether it is just not having like you look at Mason Laurai and you see him with the puck. Yes, he had terrible plus minus. he turns the puck over. He’s still very young and somewhat raw, but when you when he has the puck, some magical things can happen, and you don’t necessarily see that from Charlie Makavoy very regularly. There was a chance that he may have been coached by his father-in-law, Mike Sullivan, who parted ways with the Penguins. He has since been scooped up by the New York Rangers. Whoever coaches the Bruins will obviously have a big say in his deployment and whether or not he’s relied upon in defensive situations or put out there for offensive zone starts. But we really need to see Charlie Makavoy take um another step in his game coming up here this season and kind of come back from this injury with a vengeance. really to close things off a few guys to mention higher or lower obviously higher on Morgan Geeki after his 33 goal season with the caveat that he did have a 20 plus% shooting percentage and my hope is that the Bruins can resign him to a perhaps smaller deal so that he can prove that he can replicate that before they go kind of term and big money, but obviously higher on him. Um, wasn’t super high on Elias Lindholm coming into this season and can’t say that I’m any higher than I was, perhaps lower, although he did have a good start or sorry, a good finish to the season. Nikita Zidorov I was pretty high on coming into this season. You may recall Thomas Strants coming on last summer and saying he was his favorite player in the NHL because of his physicality, his personality, his propensity to do some crazy things offensively every once in a while. I might be a bit higher on him because of how he stepped up as a leader towards the end of the season. and he’s also a very passionate Bruin and he wants to experience that playoff atmosphere in Boston. So, I’m a bit higher on him than I was to begin the season, but hopefully he can cut down on some of those extraneous penalty minutes that he was racking up as a Bruin uh this season. Mason Lauri, I’m higher on I think. Yeah, he had that tournament golf winning uh plus minus, but still a lot to like about his game and you’re going to have those bumps for these young guys uh especially. All right, that’s it for today’s episode of Locked On Boston Bruins, my friends. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen. Higher or lower on Postnak and Swayman and Makavoy? Higher on pasta if that was even possible. Lower on Swayman but hopefully that is temporary. Charlie Makavoy about the same a bit lower but we’ll see what happens this coming season. Let me know where you stand on Post Swayman and Makavoy. Are you buying in pumping the brakes? Holding steady? Hit me up on X Instagram YouTube. Don’t forget to subscribe to Lockd On Boston Bruins for daily insights, offseason updates, your home for all things black and gold. Do check out as your second listen the Locked On NHL game night podcast every game every night until the Stanley Cup champion is crowned. Get local analysis on a national scale. You can find NHL game night on Locked on NHL on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. It is all part of the Locked On podcast network, your favorite team every single day. Happy Wednesday, my friends. Please do take care of yourselves, take care of each other, and we’ll talk to you again here on the next episode of Locked on Boston Bruins.

In this episode of Locked on Bruins, host Ian McLaren evaluates three core players for the Boston Bruins: David Pastrnak, Jeremy Swayman, and Charlie McAvoy. McLaren discusses whether he’s higher or lower on each player compared to last season. He praises Pastrnak’s exceptional performance, leading the NHL in 5-on-5 scoring despite team struggles. Swayman’s inconsistent season and contract issues are examined, though McLaren remains optimistic about his potential. McAvoy’s injury-shortened season is analyzed, with a call for increased offensive output. The podcast also touches on other players like Morgan Geekie and Nikita Zadorov, providing insights into the Bruins’ roster as they look to bounce back next season.

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