TAMPA — Ever since he came into the National Hockey League, Jeremy Swayman has not kept it a secret that he wanted to drop the gloves at least once in his career.
On Sunday at Raymond James Stadium in the Bruins’ 6-5 shootout loss, with the whole hockey world watching, Swayman got his wish.
He just would have preferred to pick his opponent a little more judiciously.
Not only was he giving up an inch and about 30 pounds to Andrei Vasilevskiy, he didn’t know that the Tampa goalie was a lefty. Swayman took a few more shots than he gave out before losing his balance, ending the brief tilt that had the entire stadium buzzing.
“Fighting the biggest, toughest goalie in the league probably wouldn’t be my first choice, but I got the first one out of the way. I’ll probably retire after that,” said Swayman, who admitted he was surprised by Vasilevskiy’s southpaw stance. “I’m glad we both had our first gig against each other. A really worthy opponent.”
It started when Brandon Hagel jammed at a loose puck in Swayman’s pads in the midst of the Lightning’s comeback in the second period. Both Swayman and Charlie McAvoy knocked Hagel to the ice. With his counterpart involved in the scrum, Vasilevskiy’s instinct was to skate toward the beef. Swayman had to get rid of Hagel’s stick that was tucked behind his left pad and then reminded Vasilevskiy to take off his mask before the the two got it on.
“One of the biggest moments for me personally,” said Vasilevskiy, which means a little something coming from a two-time Stanley Cup winner.
After the bout, Vasilevskiy patted Swayman on the side of the head in a friendly gesture.
“He wanted to win and so did I. That’s game respecting game. We see fights every single game and just got that one out of the way,” said Swayman.
After blowing a four-goal lead in the loss, the B’s locker room was a tad somber. But the best way to lighten the mood was to ask about the goalie fight. The players enjoyed it as much as the fans.
Young Matt Poitras lit up when asked about the goalie fight.
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” said Poitras. “That’s probably the craziest game I’ve ever been a part of, to be honest.”
David Pastrnak was seen jumping up and down on the bench as the fight was going on.
“Yeah, it was fun to see,” said Pastrnak. “Obviously it was a hell of a game for the fans and entertaining. Good for hockey. But for us as players, we left two big points here, or one. Unfortunately we didn’t get it done.”
It was not the kind of game that the losing coach would enjoy much, but Marco Sturm could appreciate the value in it all.
“It was pretty entertaining, wasn’t it?” Sturm said. “This game had pretty much everything, right? Unfortunately, we’re on the wrong side but what a start. We down from the fastest goal against probably (11 seconds in), come back, had the lead, they come back, goalie fight, what else do you want? Overall it was just a good show today, Sway having the goalie fight. They hugged it our after the game so everything’s good.”
