News: Swayman wins Richter, Perunovich wins Hobey Baker

Maine junior goaltender Jeremy Swayman fell short of winning the Hobey Baker Memorial Award, but took home the Mike Richter Award as college hockey’s top goaltender, it was announced on ESPN Saturday night.

Minnesota Duluth junior defenseman Scott Perunovich claimed college hockey’s top individual honor. Perunovich is the sixth UMD player to win the Hobey Baker Memorial Award, joining Tom Kurvers (1984), Bill Watson (1985), Chris Marinucci (1994), Junior Lessard (2004) and Jack Connolly (2012).

Perunovich, a two-time NCAA champion during his first two seasons at UMD, is also a deserving winner. The Hibbing, Minn., native has signed a NHL entry-level contract with the St. Louis Blues after a stellar three-year career in Duluth. He had six goals and 34 assists in 34 games this winter, and amassed 105 points in just 115 career games.

Swayman and North Dakota junior right wing Jordan Kawaguchi were the other two Hobey Hat Trick Finalists. If Swayman had won, he would have been the first Maine player to win the Hobey Baker since Paul Kariya did so in 1993, a year after fellow Black Bear Scott Pellerin captured the award.

Although Swayman didn’t win the Hobey, he was the winner of the Mike Richter Award as most outstanding goalie in NCAA Division 1. Among the goalies he beat out were a couple of New Englanders, Boston College freshman Spencer Knight (Darien, Conn.) and Michigan sophomore Strauss Mann (Greenwich, Conn.).

In the seven-year history of the award, a player from Hockey East has won the Mike Richter four times. In addition to Swayman this season, Northeastern’s Cayden Primeau (2019), Boston College’s Thatcher Demko (2016) and UMass Lowell’s Connor Hellebuyck (2014) have also been named college hockey’s top goaltender.

Swayman’s .939 save percentage ranked second nationally among NCAA goaltenders this season. The Anchorage, Alaska, native went 18-11-5 as he led the Black Bears to a fourth-place finish in Hockey East.

There was little doubt that Swayman was the most valuable player to his team during the 2019-20 college hockey season. He singlehandedly put Maine in a position to earn a berth in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2012 before the postseason was wiped out by the coronavirus.

In March, Swayman inked a three-year entry-level contract with the Boston Bruins, the organization that drafted him in the fourth round of the 2017 NHL Draft.

The 6-foot-2 goaltender had a rapid ascension up the development ladder, going from playing midget hockey in Colorado during the 2015-16 season to starring for the USHL’s Sioux Falls Stampede a season later. Swayman had save percentages of .921 and .919 during his first two seasons in Orono before this season’s remarkable campaign.