While the Jeremy Swayman saga continues for the Boston Bruins, the eager Joonas Korpisalo could be ‘they guy’ for a while.
The Jeremy Swayman saga doesn’t look good right now, and if you’re a Boston Bruins fan, you may be asking how general manager Don Sweeney, one of the best in the league, could have possibly let this go on for so long. Or, you may be asking why he had the audacity to trade Linus Ullmark to the Ottawa Senators for Joonas Korpisalo, someone who struggled last season.
On paper, this looks bad…very bad. But I implore you not to fret too much about this. Why? For one, look at where Korpisalo was playing last season. He was in Ottawa, struggling, much like his predecessor, Cam Talbot, did a year before.
If you don’t already know, Talbot should be the No. 1 guy this season for a Detroit Red Wings team looking to officially return to relevance. And he had a rather outstanding season in 2023-24 for the Los Angeles Kings, posting three shutouts, a 0.913 save percentage, and a 2.50 GAA.
Quite a difference from what he did in Ottawa the season before when he finished the year with one shutout, a 2.93 GAA, and an 0.898 save percentage. Sure, he had a 0.656 quality starts percentage, but it also means Talbot looked bad in some games…really bad. Or perhaps it was just the sheer inadequacy of the team he was playing for?
Joonas Korpisalo is in a much better situation with the Boston Bruins
Fast-forward to 2023-24, and Talbot rebounded into the player we all knew he still was. As for Joonas Korpisalo, who was ironically one of Talbot’s predecessors on the 2022-23 LA Kings, he started 11 games toward the end of the year and finished with a shutout, a 2.13 GAA, and a 0.921 save percentage.
Go back to his time earlier that season with the Columbus Blue Jackets, and he still snagged a 0.911 save percentage despite his paltry 3.17 GAA. Put him on the Senators, and yeah, he and everyone else were going to struggle with an 0.890 save percentage and a 3.27 GAA.
Listen, Ottawa isn’t the friendliest place for netminders, and it won’t surprise me when Linus Ullmark has his fair share of bad starts. As for Korpisalo, I would expect him to look more like the netminder who was playing for the Kings and even the Blue Jackets in 2022-23 than what he looked like with the Senators last season.
He was playing for a terrible hockey team that, unless Ullmark lifts the team on his shoulders, will be every bit as bad this season as they were last year. All of that said, the message is clear: Ideally, we all want to see Jeremy Swayman in the net, but let’s not get too angry about it because Korpisalo could likely hold things down in the meantime if he’s not signed when the regular season commences.
