Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery has had the luxury of having arguably the NHL’s best goalie tandem in Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman.
Ullmark is the runaway favorite to win the Vezina Trophy this year and has a league-leading 1.91 goals against average going into Boston’s game against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Thursday night. Swayman, meanwhile, is third with a 2.21 GAA and posted back-to-back shutouts against the Winnipeg Jets and the Buffalo Sabres earlier this month.
Montgomery has been alternating his goalies of late and hasn’t ruled out using both of them in the Stanley Cup playoffs, but did mention Ullmark likely would be the Game 1 starter, so we haven’t seen either goalie get a back-to-back start since February.
That will change Thursday after Montgomery confirmed Ullmark will be the goalie for Boston against Columbus.
When Montgomery was asked if starting Ullmark was part of the process for building him up for playoffs, the head coach didn’t hesitate to answer.
“Yeah, that’s exactly it,” he told reporters at TD Garden. “We figured this little run here, get him three games in six days, that’s gonna replicate a little bit of playoffs and it’s also gonna allow Swayman to get some games on the back end of that.”
It’s been a good problem for the Bruins to have, and it’s helped that goalie coach Bob Essensa has been working with the netminders this season (and since 2003) and helping them get prepared for each start. Which, in turn, has helped Montgomery decide which goalie to start on any given night.
“All I know is that he makes my life a lot easier,” Montgomery told reporters of Goalie Bob. “From Day 1 I told him you will tell the goalies, just tell me who you think should start. And I never overtrumped him all year, I just ask him why so that I can learn from him. And he’s been spot on. There’s been times when our plan was to go with Ullmark or Swayman he goes, ‘no I think we should of this way,’ and it was his plan in the first place and he deviates from his plan because he has such a great relationship with them, and he understands from a goalie’s perspective what allows them to have success not only long-term but short-term.”
The proof of Essensa’s impact is in the stats of Ullmark and Swayman. Montgomery clearly has all the trust in the world in Essensa, and understandably so.
Ullmark will go for his 37th win of the season Thursday night against the Blue Jackets. Puck drop from TD Garden is set for 7 p.m. ET and you can catch all the action beginning at 6 p.m. on NESN.
