Jeremy Swayman's contract situation with the Bruins directly links to Igor Shesterkin's future in New York.
The Boston Bruins situation with goaltender Jeremy Swayman has become a disaster and the New York Rangers must take notes.
After months of negotiations, Bruins president Cam Neely made his supposed offer to Swayman public for the whole hockey world to know.
"I don't want to get into the weeds with what his ask is," Neely said, "but I know that I have 64 million reasons why I'd be playing right now."
Shortly following those words, Swayman’s agent Lewis Gross released a statement denying that a $64 million offer was ever made and put the star goalie’s future with the Bruins in question.
"Normally, I do not release statements or discuss negotiations through the media," Gross said in a statement on Instagram. "However, in this case, I feel I need to defend my client. At today's press conference, $64 million was referenced. That was the first time that number was discussed in our negotiations. Prior to the press conference, no offer was made reaching that level."
"We are extremely disappointed. This was not fair to Jeremy. We will take a few days to discuss where we go from here."
Now, what was a private negotiation has turned public and that’s not the way to handle in-house business.
By announcing their offer, the organization not only hurt future negotiations but made Swayman even more disgruntled than he was prior to all of this.
With Igor Shesterkin, the Rangers must make sure that they don’t make the same mistake as the Bruins.
It’s critical that Chris Drury respects Shesterkin’s privacy and they deal with any issues privately in order to avoid upsetting their superstar goalie.
Shesterkin is set to become a free agent next summer as has expressed interest in remaining a Ranger while Drury has been on record saying that Shesterkin is in New York’s long term plans.
There is a professional manner to handle these sorts of situations. The Bruins opted to take the wrong route and let's hope the Rangers don’t do the same.
