As of Thursday afternoon, Jim Montgomery wasn’t ready to name the Bruins’ starting goaltender for Friday night’s game in Florida.
Montgomery met with the media roughly 14 hours after Boston failed to end its first-round Stanley Cup playoff series with the Panthers on home ice. Florida’s season-saving win was aided by a brutal overtime mistake from Linus Ullmark, who was otherwise solid in net Wednesday night.
Asked directly if he would consider making a goalie change for Game 6 at FLA Live Arena, Montgomery didn’t shut down the possibility of Jeremy Swayman making his 2023 playoff debut.
“We’re going to evaluate everything again,” Montgomery told reporters, per a team-provided video. “I have complete confidence in Ullmark and if we decide to go with Sway, I have complete confidence in him. The luck we have is at every position, we have players who can go in and get the job done.”
Ullmark registered a .913 save percentage and 2.79 goals against average across the first five tilts of the best-of-seven set with the Panthers. The Vezina Trophy frontrunner also arguably has played his best hockey of the series in Florida, where he stopped a combined 70 of the 74 shots he faced between Games 3 and 4 (both Bruins wins).
Should Swayman receive the nod for Friday night, it will mark his first start since April 13 in Montreal.
