Swayman discusses Team USA, Bruins’ resurgence in sitdown with NHL.com

BOSTON -- The “yes” was immediate.

Jeremy Swayman was never going to pass up an opportunity to represent his country, no matter what had gone on for the past 10 months, no matter where his confidence was. He was grateful for the chance, that the United States wanted him as part of its team for the 2025 IIHF World Championship last spring.

Because he needed it.

The 27-year-old goaltender needed a chance to reset himself, to prove himself on the heels of a season in which he skipped training camp in a contract dispute, signed an eight-year, $66 million contract, had his worst NHL season as the team cratered and the coach was fired and the Boston Bruins missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs after eight straight appearances.

It was at that low point that USA Hockey came calling, putting Swayman in position to wrest the starting spot from a shared role with Joey Daccord and, with a 1-0 overtime shutout of Switzerland in the gold medal game, help bring the U.S. a championship it hadn’t won in 92 years.

“I didn’t have the year I wanted to last year and USA staff still believed in me, and I thought that was a huge testament,” Swayman said in a sitdown with NHL.com before Team USA won gold at the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 with a 2-1 overtime victory against Canada on Sunday. “I owe them a ton of credit because they really boosted my confidence when I needed it most.”

It has given rise to everything that has happened since, including a far better 2025-26 season, both for him and for the Bruins, and his inclusion on Team USA for the Olympics, alongside goalies Connor Hellebuyck and Jake Oettinger, even with a deep group of American talent at the position. He earned the start in the preliminary round against Team Denmark, a 6-3 win, though the start included two shaky goals allowed.

“I think ‘Sway’ was really eager to show everybody what he could do, right?” said Thomas Speer, the San Jose Sharks goalie coach who served in the same role for the U.S. at the World Championship. “Maybe a little bit vulnerable from the year before. But still confident in himself. … He was very coachable, he listened, he worked hard, and the game came to him. He just kind of found it.

“He’s already a great goalie. But the tournament brought the best out of him.”

He hasn’t lost it since, using the confidence gained at the World Championship, a newly formed relationship with his own personal sports psychologist and renewed understanding of what it takes to succeed in the NHL, to refashion himself back into the sky’s-the-limit goalie the Bruins bet on when they traded former Vezina Trophy winner Linus Ullmark on June 26, 2024.

The goalie returned to the Bruins this week, gold medal in hand, to restart what has been a surprising season for a team expected to be limping toward a lottery pick in the 2026 NHL Draft. Instead, the Bruins (33-20-5), with Swayman near his best, with a 2.92 goals-against average and .903 save percentage, are contending for a playoff berth, a run that continues with a game against the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday at Xfinity Mobile Arena (3 p.m. ET; ABC, TVAS).

But it all started last summer, when Swayman got a chance at redemption, to lift himself and his team up, when he got the call and he said “yes” and he ended the tournament in a pile of teammates, just as he did last weekend in Milan.

“What a release,” Swayman said. “What a release. It was the first time I’ve ever gotten to shed my mitts and celebrate -- and the fact that it was overtime, too, is that much more special.

“I think it was just finally knowing that I could win and having that burden off my shoulders at an extremely high level. And, yeah, that confidence definitely carries with me to this day.”

* * * 

But it didn’t start that way.

It was late in the third period that the puck flew through traffic from the high slot, its path taking it over Swayman’s left leg, ticking off his knee and up into the goal. It was the fifth goal for Norway -- not exactly a powerhouse team -- in the preliminary round game at the World Championship, as it climbed back into a contest it should not have been able to climb back into.

And though the United States would end up winning, in overtime, on a goal by Tage Thompson, giving up five goals to Norway was not what Swayman had hoped for his experience at the World Championship.

It was, in some ways, more of the same. So he went back to basics.

“It was the one time where just him and I got on the ice for half an hour and we just did the most boring goalie drills you can think of,” Speer said. “Doing those basic drills, he just was like, ‘OK, this is it. I’ve got to feel that. That’s it. That’s the feeling.’”

It was a feeling he had felt before in the NHL, including during his outstanding run in the 2024 playoffs, in which he had a 2.15 GAA and .933 save percentage in 12 games, pushing the Bruins into the second round against the eventual Cup champion Florida Panthers.

It was the feeling that he had at his best, a best that he -- and others -- believe stands among the tops in the world.

It was the feeling he had been chasing.

Swayman understood the confidence that Speer had in him. And, in turn, the goalie trusted Speer, even though they had never previously met. As Swayman put it, “I didn’t necessarily have the belief in myself that he had in me at that time and I just told myself, like, ‘If he believes in me, why the [heck] can’t I?’ And it was that simple.”

Swayman saw he had devolved into hoping he would win, rather than believing he would, rather than knowing, the way he had always been before.

“And [Speer] was like, ‘Your chin is down, your eyes are on the puck, you’re going to stop it every time,’” Swayman said. “That was really, really good for me to hear that.”

It was what he needed, the concept that, “yes, you could be self-critical but also be nice to yourself,” as he put it.

“Goals go in all the time, right?” Speer explained. “And I talked to him about, what is a real emergency in your life? Your house is on fire. Something happens to your family. That’s real. But goalies will treat goals-against like that. It’s like they question themselves, they question who they are, on a goal or a bad game and they’re sitting there and they’re second-guessing everything. It’s like, you’ve made these saves, you’ve been amazing your whole career, be amazing. And he was.”

Daccord got one more start after that game against Norway. But it would be his last, with Swayman getting the final two games of the prelims, and on into the quarterfinal against Finland.

“I think winning that game, Sway was back after that,” Speer said, of the Finland win. “I think after that game he knew he was the guy. He even grabbed me after one of the games, said we’re winning the gold. I think it was the semis [against Sweden]. He said, ‘We’re winning,’ and I believed him. There was no question about it.”

There was, indeed, no question. Even when the final went into overtime, Switzerland and the U.S. tied 0-0.

“As the fans in Boston have seen, he’s a very charismatic, full-of-energy type of goalie and he’s at his best when he’s showing his emotions,” Daccord said. “I noticed right away that he was locked in [that game], just because of the way he was moving, the interactions we had, with his teammates, he just seemed ready to go. And he obviously played amazing.”

He was back.

“He came over for a reason, to prove everybody wrong or right or however you want to look at it,” Speer said. “[He got his] swagger back. One hundred percent. He knows he can be the best goalie in the world if the situation appears. He knows he can do it. And he can be. He’s an unbelievable goalie.”

* * *

When Swayman returned from the tournament, he did so with renewed focus, with renewed faith. He remained on the ice, committed to keeping the momentum he had gained in winning gold and riding it into the 2025-26 season.

He made another decision too.

While Swayman was used to sports psychologists, had made use of their services as provided by the Bruins and other teams, he decided this was the moment to engage his own. This was the moment to drill down on the mental side of his game, to align it with where he thought he had gotten on the physical side.

“He’s been lights out for me,” Swayman said. “I’m just really fortunate to have a conversation and really depict how I’m feeling, life away from hockey and then life in hockey.

“The best thing he ever told me was let’s change the stigma of, why would we make the rink a place where anxiety starts, where stresses start, and why do we use this practice to make the rink a place of happiness and joy because that’s what we chose as kids, like we chose hockey because we wanted to be in the NHL and time and again we find ourselves really stressed out and full of anxiety.”

That message flipped a switch for Swayman. As he put it, “It’s a choice.”

He’s doing what he loves, what he always wanted to do, even amidst the sense of responsibility he feels to his team, whether that’s the U.S. or the Bruins.

“We care so much and that’s a good thing,” Swayman said. “I think Boston fans can rest easy at night because they know they’ve got a goalie that cares a lot and wants to win more than anyone. And with that comes the burden of mental stress, mental anxieties, but at the same time, it’s my job to be a pro and understand how to control those.”

He knows how that adversity could have crushed him last season, how his life transitions and hockey transitions could have overwhelmed him, how the disappointment of his performances could have pushed him down.

“I could have slipped, really easily,” Swayman said. “Losing’s hard, especially when you’re used to a winning culture and a locker room that takes care of itself and [when] all those things change, it’s extremely difficult.”

* * *

There was so much that went wrong in 2025.

There was so much that went right.

Swayman and his fiancée, Alessandra Iacaboni, moved into their first home in 2025. They got engaged. Iacaboni got pregnant.

There was so much space for gratitude, a feeling Swayman is committed to feeling more often, committed to embracing. The couple, at the end of last year, sat down together to write what they were grateful for in 2025. They saw it all laid out in front of them.

“A lot of good things happened in 2025,” Swayman said. “As much as it was a challenge with games, man, what an incredible year it was, and then right into 2026.

“So right now, I’m just the same Jeremy, but so much more experienced. My approach is a lot different than I had a year ago because I have a track record of a really hard year in the NHL being on an average team instead of an elite team and having to go through that struggle and again, coming out on top. So that, for me, is just a lot of confidence with the experience I have now and approaching games with that confidence.”

He has embraced all of it, all the newness, all the opportunity. He has rediscovered his game. He has rediscovered his joy.

“The No. 1 thing is how much fun he has,” Daccord said. “You can just tell he’s just having fun out there. He loves hockey, he loves playing, he loves the game, and he’s always got a big smile on his face.”

There were times last season, though, when that smile had faded, when that enjoyment had waned. When the job became a job, with all that that entails.

He remembers, now, who he is. What he needs to think in those biggest of moments. Who he needs to be. Who he was in that gold medal game.

“Jeremy Swayman from Anchorage, Alaska, baby,” he said, smiling. “It’s the coolest thing ever when I see myself in those moments and I think back literally while I’m playing like, I was just an [idiot] from Alaska that found his way on the world stage.

“That’s why I don’t let those moments slip because I owe it to myself and to my family and everyone that’s helped me to get there to have the best time of my life and to perform at my best level. My confidence is at an all-time high because I know that I’m supposed to be in that net, supposed to be in that moment, born to be in that moment.”