BRUINS’ GOALIE NIGHTMARE? 🥅 The BIGGEST Dilemma Facing Boston in 2025-26!

BRUINS’ GOALIE NIGHTMARE? 🥅 The BIGGEST Dilemma Facing Boston in 2025-26!

The Bruins are in a goalie mess here kind of big time and they’ve only themselves to blame. Again, it used to be that the Bruins treated goalender almost on a higher plane than every other team in the league, right? The Bruins have won in the last 10, 15 years thanks in a huge part to their goalending situation. you know, to go from Tim Thomas to a Hall of Famer in Tukar Rasque to a shrewd move to bring in Lena and then develop what looks like a young star in Jeremy Swayman. Like nobody in this league has had a better last 15 years of goalie except for maybe the New York Rangers going essentially from Lungquist to Shurken. You know, like the Bruins have been in a really good spot. Credit to Bob Asenza, credit to their scouting department. Um, obviously going back a long time, but they have won primarily because of the goalender. I don’t think you need to do that in today’s NHL, but certainly the Bruins have done it. And so now going into the 202526 season, the Bruins goalie situation is as weird and as messed up as it’s been in a long time. Let me start by saying this. I expect a bounceback season from Jeremy Swayman. I do. It was a bad year last year. We’ll get into more of that as we talk here, but I do expect Jeremy Swayman to bounce back. I do think Jeremy Swayman’s the number one goalie in this league. Uh eight and a quarter million a year. I don’t know if he’s quite worth that. Uh but I think he is an above average goalie in this league who deserves to be a starter on a decent team and could be an all-star goalie again. I really believe that. That said, where the Bruins have really messed this up is the goalending tandem. Okay, one of the reasons they were so great, I mean, probably their biggest reason they set the wins and points record two years ago was because they had the best goalending tandem maybe in NHL history. Now they have something far far from that. And Don Sweeny’s the only one really to blame. He did not handle that Lenus trade well last year at all. He trades Omar in June knowing he’s going to have to extend one of these guys as Omar goes into a contract year and so does Jeremy Swayman and he just lays his cards out right away a week before free agency opens. He has zero leverage, zero. Because he’s already traded the other guy and Yonas Corposalo was not going to be the Bruins starting goalie going into 24-25. So, of course, Jeremy Swayman was going to hold his feet over the fire. That’s that’s Don Sweeny’s fault. So, when Cam Neely and Don Sweeney are bitching up there about how they can’t get a contract done, that is your fault. That’s your fault. And the trade to begin with sucked. You got the 25th overall pick to get a project kid who had two points in the NCAA this year and Dean Lerno. And you brought in who was statistically maybe the worst goalie in the league last year in Jonas Corposalo at a $4 million cap hit. You saved a million bucks on that. How who wins that deal? It’s Ottawa. 11 times out of 10 they win that deal. And Omar, who battled some injuries this past year, had a very good year again. And Jonas Corposalo is what you thought he was. A bad goalie. And guess what? You’ve got three more years of him. Had a $4 million cap hit for a guy that you didn’t even trust to play. He played 27 games last year. It’s like throwing Jeremy Swayman to the walls almost as punishment of like, yeah, we gota we got to throw him out there 50 60 games because we’re paying him eight and a quarter million. It’s just a terrible trade strategy. It was a terrible return. It just didn’t make any sense. And all that for a a Vzna winning goalie that you traded within your division with a team that you knew was going to be battling for a playoff spot against you. Like what an awful, awful, awful move. And Ottawa gave up on Corposalo after one season. They had to attach a first round pick just to get rid of him. And they got a great return. And this is not one year for Jonas Corposalo. This has been a downward trend, man. He’s had a sub 900 save percentage in four of the last five years. Like that’s kind of the difference between league starter and just not good enough. He’s had a sub 900 save percentage four of the last five seasons. Lenus Omar has never had a sub 900 save percentage for a season. Not one time in his career. Jonas Corposalo makes a regular habit out of it. and you’re still locked down to him for another three years, which is all the more confusing that you extended your Providence Bruins goalie, Michael D. Petro, for two years this summer in a vacuum. I like that. You know why? Because Michael Dpro should be your backup goalie. He had an unbelievable season in Providence this past year. There’s no reason DPro shouldn’t be the second part of the tandem with Jeremy Swayman. He is 26 years old and playing minor league hockey, but we know goalies are weird, man. The guy like the greatest goalending hero of my lifetime is Tim Thomas who was like playing in Finland at age 26, man. Like he had this weird serpentine route to the NHL. Michael Dpro has the same kind of deal. I’m not saying he’s going to turn out to be Tim Thomas, but he’s played one NHL game in the regular season with Vancouver. He gave up seven goals in that game. They threw him to the Wolves and then they gave up on him. They traded him to the Bruins for Jackson. Remember that name? And he had to go down to the ECHL before making it back to the AHL. This dude was playing for the main Mariners a couple years ago. And last year he stepped out in a big way. He won the Bazbastian Award, the Vzna Trophy for the AHL last season, 268 and5. He was third in the league at 2.05 goals against average. And he led the entire AHL with a 927 save percentage. That’s not just Vzna stuff. That’s almost league MVP kind of numbers for a goalie. and he’s just sitting there doing it in Providence while Yon Yonas Corposal was an 890 save percentage in the NHL. It doesn’t make any sense. And now Don Sweeney, you’ve put yourself a in a hell of a bind once again. You’ve backed yourself into a corner with your goalies. You probably should have dealt Yonas Corposalo before the beginning of last season. And maybe it wasn’t DPro at that point. Maybe you just got a league average backup. You know, someone like a Yaro Hak who has been on this team before, just recently retired. You maybe get someone like that. I think that was there was a lot of buzz around that before last season because you traded you tra you traded a guy with a $5 million cap hit who was one of the best goalies in the league for arguably the worst goalie in the league at a $4 million cap hit. It just didn’t make any sense to keep him. I thought a I think a lot of people expected Jonas Corposal to be traded before last year, but they’re either naive or they haven’t. They’re they’re not used to the Don Sweeney experience because he’s all in on deals that just make no sense. And now to get rid of him, you’re going to have to do what Ottawa did. You’re going to have to trade a first round pick along with it. Nobody wants Corposalo. Nobody. I don’t even think Edmonton would go for him. He’s not even as good as Steuart Skinner. You’d have to tack on legit draft capital just to get rid of this guy while you sit down there in the miners with a guy who is clearly too good for the AHL. Do those numbers automatically translate Michael DPRO is a starting caliber goalie in the NHL? Of course that’s not automatic. Of course it’s not. But we’re not talking about having a good season in the AHL. We’re talking about having a dominant season in the AHL. You got to give the kid a look. That is one of Don Sweeny’s biggest problems and one of the Boston Bruins biggest problems of the last couple of seasons, the last two or three years, specifically the last one or two years. You’ve got to give these kids a look at some point. And we saw it at the tail end of last season, but probably not enough for as bad as that team was for the whole year. Fabian Lysel, Georgie Murcul, Matt Potra, Fraser Mitten. These guys have to play in the NHL at this point. You’ve got to see what they have. And the goalending situation is no different. You’ve got to see what Michael Dpro can give you. You’ve got to see what he can be at the NHL level. If it’s gonna take a Jonas Corposalo injury to get him up there, that’s a big issue, man. Because what does Corposalo give you? He sucks, man. Like, let’s be straight up. The dude is not an NHL caliber goalie at this point. And he has not shown that in basically the last five seasons. Columbus signs it to a contract. They give up on him. They send him to LA. Ottawa signs it to a five-year contract, gives him up after a year, and the Bruins are willing to trade a Vzna winning goalie for him. Make it make sense. Please, somebody help me. Why isn’t Michael Dpietro the backup right now? Why wasn’t he at the end of last season when you could have traded Corposalo for, I don’t know, scraps at the trade deadline? You still would had to attach something. probably not a first round pick. Probably a third or fourth round pick for some flyer, some Andre Kasha type flyer. You’re not getting anything out of Yonas Corposalo. Meanwhile, Michael Dpietro is carrying the P Bruins into the postseason last year in the AHL. Carrying him. Arguably the most valuable player in the entire league, winning the AHL VZNA. And yet we’re going to see him in Providence again. Gonna see him at the dunk. Not going to see him at the Garden. Gonna see gonna pay 150 bucks to sit in the balcony on a Tuesday night. See Yonas Corposalo give up five against Columbus. That’s what you’re going to be in for this year. I don’t know, man. Somebody’s got to help me. Let me know what you guys think in the comments section below. Is it time for Michael Dpro? And how important is this goalending position this year? We’ll talk about Jeremy Swayman a little bit more this week and why I believe in a bounceback. But how important is it for the Bruins to have above average goalending if they have any kind of outside shot of making the playoffs? Goalender can fix a lot of ills on a team. So that’s why I think it’s time for Michael DPro. But let me know what you think in the comments section below. Be sure to like the video, subscribe to the channel. It is completely free. Helps us out a ton. Helps me out. Helps me keep my job. So like, subscribe, find us on YouTube and wherever you find your podcast as well. Check out the other videos on the channel talking Bruins, everything else going on in the world of Boston sports. I’m your host, Cam Stewart. Zack Burke keeps us on the air five days a week.

The Boston Bruins are facing a significant goalie dilemma for the 2025-26 season, particularly when it comes to who will back up Jeremy Swayman.

On one hand, there’s Joonas Korpisalo, who was acquired as part of the Linus Ullmark trade. He’s a veteran NHL netminder with a $4 million AAV contract that runs through the 2027-28 season (though $1 million is retained by Ottawa, making his hit to Boston $3 million). While he served as the backup, his 2024-25 performance with Boston saw an 11-10-3 record with a 2.90 GAA and a .893 SV% in 27 games. Reports indicated he wasn’t pleased with his limited role and might consider requesting a trade if his playing time doesn’t increase, despite the Bruins valuing a bounce-back from Swayman. His contract and desire for more playing time create a challenge.

On the other hand, the Bruins have Michael DiPietro, who is coming off an “absolutely magnificent” 2024-25 AHL season with the Providence Bruins. He posted a stellar 26-8-5 record, a 2.05 GAA, and a .927 SV% in 40 regular season games, followed by a strong playoff performance. DiPietro recently signed a two-year, $1.625 million one-way deal with the Bruins, meaning he’ll earn the same salary whether in the NHL or AHL. This one-way contract indicates the Bruins see him as ready for an NHL role and makes it more difficult to send him to the minors without risking him being claimed.

The dilemma for the Bruins is clear: Do they commit to the high-performing, younger prospect in DiPietro, who is now on a one-way deal and pushing for an NHL spot? Or do they stick with the veteran Korpisalo, who has a more expensive contract and potentially wants more playing time, but whose numbers were comparable to Swayman’s struggles last season? The decision will impact their cap flexibility, their goalie development pipeline, and the overall stability of their goaltending tandem behind Jeremy Swayman, who himself had a challenging 2024-25 season after signing his large extension.

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