Negotiations between Swayman, Bruins devolve into public finger-pointing

Things are going well.

After a long, long summer of “a deal will get done, it’ll get done, be patient,” things between Jeremy Swayman’s camp and the Bruins appear to be rapidly devolving.

At the start of training camp, with Swayman absent, GM Don Sweeney avoided any direct details about the negotiations — except for defending himself against “reports” that he hadn’t been returning calls.

At today’s start-of-season media availability, you knew Sweeney would be asked about it again, and you knew he would do his best to deftly dance around it (again).

That’s pretty much what happened — but Cam Neely had no issue tossing a grenade into the mix.

When asked if he was surprised at Swayman’s asking price, Sweeney had a diplomatic answer:

“No, as Charlie mentioned, I would never begrudge a player asking for what he thinks his value is.”

Neely? Uh…

“I was surprised.”

As a follow-up, Neely was asked what Swayman’s group initially asked for. He didn’t really answer the question, but poured some gasoline on the fire:

“I don’t want to get into the weeds with what his ask is, but I know that I have 64 million reasons why I’d be playing right now.”

As far as I can remember, that’s the first time the Bruins have put a concrete figure out there, a number that likely translates to something like an eight-year, $8 million AAV offer.

(Who knows though, they could have offered a 64-year deal with a $1 million AAV!)

If you thought putting that kind of info out there was a bold move, Jeremy Swayman’s agent seems to agree with you:

Obviously we’ve got a he-said, he-said situation going on here — the truth likely lies somewhere in between.

I have a very hard time believing that Neely would state a figure that had truly never been discussed in the negotiations.

I could see him getting the number wrong by a million or two, but it would be insane if he publicly stated a number that wasn’t even in the negotiations ballpark.

At the same time, Lewis Gross isn’t likely to publicly call the Bruins organization liars if what Neely’s saying is true.

There appears to be a serious disconnect between the two camps at this point, and it’s hard to tell where the blame lies.

There’s been an awful lot of negative “reports” leaking about the Bruins during these negotiations (not returning calls, haven’t talked for weeks, etc.).

It isn’t a stretch to wonder is Swayman’s camp might be the source of those “reports,” just as a way to put pressure on the team.

Sweeney, who has played things pretty tight thus far, can’t be thrilled at Neely going rogue at the press conference, as this isn’t going to make negotiations any easier.

While I can see Gross wanting to defend his client (though he’s really defending himself more than Swayman), I’m not sure I see how his “taking our ball and going home” stance at the end of that statement is helpful.

Neely, at another point in the press conference, insisted the the two sides would resolve things:

“I strongly believe that Jeremy wants to play here. I’ve asked him flat out, ‘do you want to play here?’ And he does. I believe that they’ll get a deal done. It’s unfortunate it’s not done today.”

So…here we are!

The team president is publicly implying that their offer is more than good enough. The player’s agent is saying that offer was never presented.

Opening Night is a week away!