One of the biggest questions surrounding the Bruins heading into the Stanley Cup Playoffs (besides the power play) will be who Boston will use as its primary goaltender.
Head coach Bruce Cassidy has been tight-lipped on the matter but said Linus Ullmark has been slightly ahead of Jeremy Swayman of late.
The competition between the tandem has been going on all season, with Swayman primarily being ahead of Ullmark the majority of the time. But a rookie slump paved the way for Ullmark to shine and look like a Game 1 starter.
Ullmark will start in the Bruins’ final home game of the 2021-22 regular season Thursday night with Swayman going Friday against the Toronto Maple Leafs. Cassidy still wouldn’t share just who will start for the B’s in the playoff opener, but he did shed a little more light on his mindset.
“I think it will be a little more open-ended, honestly, than in any other year,” Cassidy told reporters after Thursday’s optional skate, per team-provided video. “Will we run with one guy if he’s on? Absolutely, we’re not going to outthink ourselves there. The discussion with goalie Bob (Essensa) will be when you’re playing every second night, if (the playoffs) starts running on ‘is the guy capable of being at his best to be able to handle that?’ Even sometimes when it looks like things are going well, you may have to consider that so you’re not putting the goalie at a disadvantage later.
“What’s the right time to do that is always going to be the tough call. If a guy isn’t on then we won’t be afraid to go with the other guy because we’ve seen him play well. So that’s also in our back pocket. It can be tough for the starter sometimes knowing all that, but that’s the way that our year has worked out. Sticking to what we’ve done well all year is use both goaltenders, so we don’t want to completely blow that up. It’s going to be a decision in the moment is the easiest way to say it. It could go one way or the other, but I just know that if we go on the run that we want to, neither one of these goalies has done that at this time of year, so we have to be very mindful of that.”
At the end of the day, it seems like the Bruins have a good problem on their hands.
The Bruins take on the Buffalo Sabres at 7 p.m. ET on NESN.
