Jeremy Swayman Wanted to be a leaf

 

The Leafs have not had the best luck when it comes to drafting goalies.

@James Reimer is the most recent goalie that the team has drafted to play more than 100 games with the team, while the best goalie they have drafted since 2000 (@Tuukka Rask) never played a game for them. How @Joseph Woll will fare once he earns a permanent promotion to the Leafs remains to be seen, but with 30-plus years of brutal luck with drafted goalies, history is not on his side.

That definitely holds true for @Ian Scott, the 2017 draft pick that the Leafs selected 110th overall. After making waves with an outstanding season with the Prince Albert Raiders, where he helped lead the team to the Memorial Cup and won the CHL Goalie of the Year, he entered with a ton of promise. Sadly, he suffered from injuries after turning pro, and over the course of three years, he only appeared in seven games overall in the AHL and ECHL. He was forced to resign at the young age of 23 due to persistent illnesses that denied him the chance to grow.

 The Bruins selected @Jeremy Swayman from the University of Maine one spot after Scott. He looks set to be Boston's keeper of the future after an outstanding rookie campaign that saw him finish sixth in the Calder Trophy voting.

However, he recently stated on the Dropping the Gloves Podcast that he hoped to have been selected by the Leafs, so that almost did not happen.

"I was looking for Toronto to draft me because I talked to them a ton during the year... Pick 110...they draft another goalie."

With Pick 111, the Bruins took @JeremySwayman.

Sway tells the story:@hockeyfights #leafsforever #nhlbruins pic.twitter.com/JM34HIMrGe

— Dropping the Gloves (@dropping_gloves) September 23, 2022

 While it would be simple to hold Mark Hunter solely responsible for passing on Swayman and selecting Scott instead, nobody could have predicted the outcomes for both goalies.

The Leafs saw Scott as a prospect with good size, mobility in the crease, and a cool head that would have been ideal for a competitive market like Toronto when they first drafted him. When the draft was about to begin, he was ranked third among all North American goalies and was expected to be chosen in the third or fourth round. The Leafs most likely thought that Scott's lacklustre performance in his draft year was a result of the Raiders' poor performance that year rather than his own shortcomings.