Jeremy Swayman and Joonas Korpisalo found each other before puck drop last night, and the Bruins got a quick look back at an old tandem.
The two goalies skated over to greet each other at the start of the game. No theatrics, just two guys who once shared a crease acknowledging it.
Their history runs back to 2024-25. Korpisalo landed in Boston that season in the trade that sent Linus Ullmark to Ottawa.
That deal reshaped the Bruins goaltending room in one move. Swayman went from one partner to another in a single transaction.
Goalies build a strange kind of bond. They share the same drills, the same pressure and the same net, even when only one of them gets the start.
In the clip, the two goalies meet before the opening faceoff and share a quick greeting, old partners suddenly on opposite ends of the ice.
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A classy moment on a night that also brought a Zadorov no-call
It was a sharp contrast with another moment from the same night. The Bruins-Rangers opener also produced a no-call on Nikita Zadorov's stick-and-glove contact with Oliver Bjorkstrand.
One moment had fans debating supplemental discipline. The other reminded everyone the sport still carries some old-school manners.
This is the good stuff, and it deserves as much airtime as the whistles that never came. A goalie salute costs nothing and says a lot about that fraternity.
It's like running into your old college roommate at a wedding, sitting on opposite sides of the aisle. You still wave.
Marco Sturm's group now heads out on the road, with Winnipeg on Friday and Minnesota on Saturday.
That's a back-to-back, and how Sturm splits the crease across those two nights will say plenty about his early trust level.
The reunion was brief. Somewhere down the road, these two could meet again with a lot more on the line, and the greeting might not last as long.
Did the Bruins make a mistake breaking up the Jeremy Swayman and Joonas Korpisalo tandem?
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