Bruins

“I’m very excited about what’s to come. We’re in for a heck of a summer.”

Linus Ullmark was his usual candid self when fielding the inevitable questions about his future in Boston on Sunday morning. 

“My future here? I’ve got one more year,” Ullmark acknowledged. “I’m very excited about what’s to come. We’re in for a heck of a summer. I’m very motivated, mixed in with some revenge, obviously some inspiration this fall, but most of all, excitement of what’s to come.”

Based on the terms of the four-year, $20 million contract that he signed in July 2021, Ullmark is currently penciled into Boston’s roster for the 2024-25 season before hitting free agency next summer.

Of course, plenty of circumstances have changed for both the Bruins and Ullmark as of late — especially in the wake of Jeremy Swayman’s emergence as the team’s No. 1 option in net during the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs. 

With Swayman due for a sizable pay raise this summer and Ullmark reportedly using his trade protection to nix a deal out west in March, the 30-year-old goalie knows that his future with Boston is far from a guarantee moving forward. 

“It’s hard to not hear it,” Ullmark said of trade rumors. “But you can’t be isolating yourself because then you would live in a shed in the woods and you’d show up here for practice sometimes. …  I have never been a part of any trade talks before, so that was a new experience.

“Was it hard? Yeah, it was hard, because you’re very comfortable where you are, you don’t want to move when you feel like you’re playing well, and you have the team, you have the bonds that you’ve made with your teammates.”

In a perfect world, the Bruins would welcome the luxury and stability that comes with having two No. 1 goalies in place for another 82-game slate in 2024-25.

Ullmark put together a strong 2023-24 season (22-10-7, .915 save percentage), while Boston’s even allocation of reps kept both of its goalies fresh for the postseason.

But the Bruins are not in a position to opt for the status quo at the goaltender position — especially with several other areas of the roster in need of upgrades. 

With Swayman likely commanding an annual cap hit of at least $7 million or more on his next deal, the Bruins can’t allocate at least $12-13 million of their fiscal flexibility to a spot on the roster where one of your top assets is planted on the bench.

Boston’s plans for a goalie rotation during this latest playoff push dissipated in short order once Swayman emerged as a brick wall between the pipes against Toronto. Swayman ended up starting 12 of Boston’s 13 playoff games before the team was bounced by Florida in the second round.

Ullmark’s lone start came in Game 2 against the Maple Leafs, with the 2022-23 Vezina Trophy winner giving up three goals on 34 shots in a loss. He was from the issue in a game where Boston’s defense was knocked for several miscues, but it’s a results-based business in the playoffs. 

“This is the thing about playing professional sports, one of the hardest things is to be off to the side, because you want the team to succeed, but you want it to succeed with you as well,” Ullmark said of his limited reps during the playoffs. “So it’s definitely one of the hardest things, but I wasn’t alone in it. 

“Obviously there’s other guys that wanted to play as well. I thought that having the support system that I have and also having the conversations that I had with people around it… I felt that I did what I could, I did what needed to be done, I tried to carry myself very professionally and support every single one of my fellow teammates throughout this stretch.”

If Ullmark is looking for more guaranteed reps as a No. 1 option in net (which he would be for just about any other team), a change in scenery might be the best path ahead for all parties. 

Striking a deal involving Ullmark not only could net Boston vital draft capital (or even a player), but taking his $5 million cap hit off their books would also give the Bruins nearly $26 million in cap space this offseason.  

Don Sweeney and the Bruins will welcome as much cap flexibility as they can this summer, especially with Boston in desperate need of a top-six center and more scoring punch up front. 

A path moving forward with Swayman earning the lion’s share of reps and an affordable backup in place like Brandon Bussi makes plenty of sense for Boston. However, the Bruins still need to navigate Ullmark’s no-trade list, which goes from 16 teams to 15 teams next season, per CapFriendly. 

And even if moving on from Ullmark stands as a logical move for a team looking to build off of this year’s playoff push, his longtime partner in net admitted that Ullmark’s presence has been invaluable over the last three years. 

“Just endless positivity, and and we thrive off that with each other and and knowing that it’s not easy when you’re not playing games,” Swayman acknowledged. “And I’ve been in his shoes where you really are being the ultimate teammate, and his demeanor was to bring, to compete every day understanding that if I wasn’t being my best, you could be in that net just as fast.

“So my job was to maintain the competitiveness, maintain the edge, and not have any days off. Because if I did, then, again, he could take that net just as fast. So knowing that he’s such a quality goalie and a quality human, it was such a privilege and an incredible thing that we had going, because only going to make one another better and of course, indirectly, our team better.”