Jeremy Swayman exited the Boston Bruins’ crease Thursday night after Montreal went up 4-0, with Michael DiPietro taking over in the second period.
With the Bruins and Canadiens separated by a single point atop the Atlantic Division entering the night, was the switch based on Swayman’s performance, or was it a message to a team that showed up in lackadaisical fashion?
Swayman surrendered four goals on 17 shots before coach Marco Sturm made the change. Kirby Dach put Montreal in front in the first period with a spinning move, and Josh Anderson doubled the lead by banging home a rebound for his eighth goal of the season.
Jake Evans made it 3-0 in the second, breaking in alone after a Jacob Fowler save and beating Swayman with a soft shot through the pads. Cole Caufield followed on another breakaway, snapping a shot into the top of the net.
Phillip Danault later beat DiPietro for a fifth, and Boston answered to make it 5-1.
Why the Boston Bruins Pulled Jeremy Swayman
No injury has been reported. Swayman wasn’t on the Bruins’ pregame injury report, which listed only forward James Hagens (back), and nothing in the game coverage suggested he was hurt when DiPietro skated in.
The numbers were rough. Swayman finished with a .765 save percentage, and two of the four goals came on breakaways.
Still, Sturm has a record of pulling Swayman to send a signal, not to punish him. After a 5-4 loss at Detroit on Dec. 2, 2025, in which Swayman allowed five goals on 23 shots, the coach pointed at the skaters in front of him.
“It was almost not fair the way we played in front of him,” Sturm said, according to WEEI. The move, he explained, was meant to jolt the group, not indict the goalie.
He did it again in Game 4 of last spring’s first-round series against the Buffalo Sabres, pulling Swayman after he stopped 23 shots in a 6-1 loss. Swayman shouted down the bench on his way off the ice.
“It was not his fault today, I can tell you that,” Sturm said afterward, according to WEEI.
Thursday marked at least the sixth time Swayman has been pulled since the start of the 2024-25 season. The Detroit and Buffalo games came under Sturm. The earlier three were Oct. 31, 2024, against Carolina, Jan. 22, 2025, against New Jersey and March 13, 2025, against Ottawa.
Boston Bruins Goalies Jeremy Swayman and Michael DiPietro by the Numbers
Swayman entered Thursday 9-3-1 with a 2.21 goals-against average and a .920 save percentage through 13 games. Four days earlier, he stopped 40 of 41 shots against Florida, a season high.
DiPietro was 4-1-0 with a 2.21 goals-against average and a .925 save percentage. He earned his first NHL shutout Oct. 22, stopping all 28 shots in a 6-0 win over Nashville. Together, the pair has saved 14.8 goals above expected, the best total of any tandem in the league.
Swayman, 27, was born Nov. 24, 1998, in Anchorage, Alaska. Boston drafted him in the fourth round, 111th overall, in 2017, and he spent three seasons at the University of Maine, winning the Mike Richter Award in 2020. He signed an eight-year extension worth $8.25 million annually in October 2024, then posted a 31-18-4 record in 2025-26 with a 2.71 goals-against average and .908 save percentage.
DiPietro, 27, was born June 9, 1999, in Windsor, Ontario, and Vancouver took him in the third round in 2017. He played three NHL games with Vancouver, going 0-2-0, then spent 2023-24 through 2025-26 with AHL Providence. He won AHL goalie of the year honors in each of the last two of those seasons, going 34-8-1 with a 1.91 goals-against average in 2025-26. DiPietro made Boston’s roster out of camp after the Bruins traded Joonas Korpisalo in July.
Bruins Make Sudden Jeremy Swayman Decision During Difficult Canadiens Game