Don Sweeney added some goaltending depth on Monday morning.
The Bruins agreed to a one-year, entry level deal with Simon Zajicek that carries a $872,500 cap hit. The 23-year-old has played for Litvinov HC in the Czech Extraliga league for the past six seasons.
Zajicek is a 6-foot-2, 187-pound left-hander who led his league in save percentage last season (.930%) while posting a 2.12 goals against average.
Goaltending was not a strength of Boston’s in 2024-25.
After signing an eight-year, $66 million deal, Jeremy Swayman delivered a 22-29-7 season with an .892 save percentage and 3.11 goals against average. Backup Joonas Korpisalo didn’t fare much better, with a .290 GAA and .893 save percentage and 11-10-3 record.
In his season-ending press conference, Sweeney was asked if the lopsided playing time split (58 appearances for Swayman, 27 for Korpisalo) contributed to the poor performance.
“In my exit meeting, Jeremy categorically denied that the extra workload was part of it,” Sweeney said. “In some ways, it also led Korpisalo to say he didn’t play enough and would like to have a little more of that lion’s share, and that’s part of the internal competition that I think we have to get back to and being able to push for playing time, for opportunity.
“There were opportunities in the course of the year where Korpisalo was playing really well and probably deserved the net. There were other times where our group felt that to get Sway back on track, to put him in situations and leverage situations that arguably he should be playing and playing in his best hockey. And if we’re going to be successful, we would like him to do that, we clearly would like him to get back to the level that he’s more than capable of getting to.
