Jeremy Swayman reacts to Jim Montgomery’s early hook

Speaking to the media on Wednesday at Warrior Ice Arena, Swayman acknowledged that he has no hard feelings regarding the quick exit.

“He’s our head coach and we trust everything that he’s going to do, and I thought we did get the jump a little bit – whatever it takes for the team to win,” Swayman said of Montgomery. “And I know that I’m going to take the positives and roll with it and move forward like I always do. … I want to be in the game no matter what.

“And it wasn’t a jawing back or anything like that. It was just a communication thing. And we talked about it and we’re completely good.”

Montgomery acknowledged on Wednesday that he held a meeting with Swayman earlier that morning to discuss Monday’s game, with Boston’s bench boss opting to roll with Swayman once again on Thursday against the San Jose Sharks.

“Sway is a competitor,” Montgomery said. “I always trust my gut behind the bench, and my gut said the team needed a spark, and that was the way to get it. In New York, my gut told me to call a timeout, and my gut told me to pull the goalie with seven and a half minutes left.

“I don’t like living with regret, and sometimes I make bad decisions. And I’ve got to own up to those as well, and I do that in my conversations with the players if it’s the case. But I’m going to go back with Swayman [Thursday] night.”

Ultimately, Montgomery’s decision to swap out Swayman for Ullmark didn’t reverse his team’s fortunes, as Boston fell to the Blue Jackets, 5-2.

Even if Swayman understood the methodology behind Montgomery’s lineup reshuffle on Monday, the fourth-year pro acknowledged that exiting any game before the final horn sounds stands as a tough pill to swallow, especially in the moment.

“I want to finish every game I start, that’s an edge that I know I play with,” Swayman said. “The guys all trust me that I’m gonna battle no matter what. That’s gonna be something I’m gonna carry forward for the rest of my career. … I gotta look at the film — I did today —and again, make some changes and move forward with the positives.”

Plenty of factors have played into Boston’s extended lull, with the Bruins knocked for five or more goals allowed in five of their last 11 games.

Even though the Bruins’ defensive structure both in their own zone and on the rush has been hewn over the last few weeks, Boston’s elite goaltending has also taken a dip from the lofty standards it set for the first five-plus weeks of the 2023-24 campaign.

Since opening the season with a 6-0-0 record, Swayman has now posted a .887 save percentage over his last five appearances.

However, Charlie McAvoy believes that some of that regression has been a byproduct of the players in front of Boston’s netminders.

“Our goalies, time and time again, were bailing us out,” McAvoy said. “You’re looking back on a couple of saves of the game, where we don’t win, and we don’t get a point if they’re not there for us.

“It’s not fair to ask them to do that every single night. For us, we’ve got to be better. Today was a good day, we wanted to just work on compete, having compete be the mindset, and D zone. Just focusing on details and having success, and we have a chance to implement it tomorrow. We’ve just got to build the game, we’ve got to build it the right way, play simple brand, and we’ll be all right.”