BOSTON — Joonas Korpisalo was blunt with what he wanted from the Bruins next season.
“I’m going to push for more games and we’ll see what happens” the goalie said at the team’s breakup day.
Korpisalo played 27 games en route to an 11-10-3 record behind Jeremy Swayman, who was in his first year as Boston’s No. 1 goalie.
Swayman had a down year — 22-29-7 with a 3.11 goals-against average and .892 save percentage in 58 starts — after he signed an eight-year extension. He missed all of training camp and the preseason due to contract negotiations and was never able to find a consistent groove.
An ’emotional’ Swayman reflects on his first game back with Bruins
The workload was new for Swayman, but Bruins general manager Don Sweeney said Wednesday that the goalie was adamant the amount of games he played didn’t contribute to his struggles. The inconsistencies, however, opened up a door for Korpisalo to voice that he felt he didn’t play enough.
“That’s part of the internal competition that I think we have to get back to and be able to push for playing time, for opportunity,” Sweeney said. “There were opportunities in the course of the year where Korpisalo was playing really well and probably deserved the net. There were other times where our group felt that to get Sway back on track, we had to put him in situations and leverage situations that arguably he should be playing and playing his best hockey. And if we’re going to be successful, we would like him to do that. We clearly would like him to get back to the level that he’s more than capable of getting to.”
An ’emotional’ Swayman reflects on his first game back with Bruins
Despite a disjointed year from Swayman, Sweeney doesn’t put all of the Bruins’ shortcomings on him. But the general manager is hoping a little internal competition will go a long way for both players.
“Leaning on Korpi and creating internal competition that says it’s not just de facto that you get the start — it certainly wasn’t previously to that,” Sweeney said. “And it worked that both those guys pushed each other, and I want that back again.”