Boston Bruins win 3 big awards at NHL Awards Gala: Thoughts & reactions

Jim Montgomery, Patrice Bergeron, and Linus Ullmark won big awards at the NHL Awards Gala on Monday night in Nashville. These people were key to the record-breaking season for the Boston Bruins.

Bergeron won the Frank J. Selke trophy for the top defensive forward in the league. Ullmark won the Vezina Trophy for the league’s top goaltender and Montgomery earned his first Jack Adams Award for the best head coach in the league.

David Pastrnak Bruins star winger David Pastrnak was also a finalist for both the Hart Memorial Trophy (Most Valuable Player) and the Ted Lindsay Award (most outstanding player as voted on by NHLPA). But both were won by the 61-goal scorer from Edmonton Connor McDavid.

Bergeron breaks Selke record for the Boston Bruins

Patrice Bergeron won his 6th Selke Trophy where no other player has won the trophy five or more times. Bergeron also followed up his 2021-22 performance where he won the Selke Trophy with a great performance in 2022-23.

He helped the Bruins have the lowest goals against average (2.12) in nine years. Bergeron lead the league in faceoff wins (1,043) for the 8th time in his career and posted the top win percentage (61.1%) among the 52 centers that took at least 1,000 draws, Bergeron also had a +/- rating of +37.

Bergeron did not attend the gala, but did address the audience via video.

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Bergeron has been a finalist for the 12th straight season, which is an extension of his own record which he broke the longest streak which Wayne Gretzky had from 1980-1989.

Boston Bruins goaltender Linus Ullmark was crowned as league’s top goalie

Linus Ullmark won the Vezina Trophy for the first time in his career. Ullmark led the NHL in wins (40), goals-against average (1.89), and save percentage (.938), becoming the eighth goaltender in NHL history to lead the NHL in all three categories and the first since Montreal’s Carey Price in 2014-15.

This is the 4th time a Bruins goaltender has won the Vezina Trophy in the last 15 years where Tukka Rask won in the 2013-14 season, and Tim Thomas won it in the 2008-09 and 2010-11 seasons. The Bruins have a total of five Vezina Trophys in the current criteria where Pete Peeters won it in 1982-83.

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Also, the Bruins became the first team to have four different Vezina Trophy winners. The Bruins five wins tie the Montreal Canadiens for the 2nd most behind the Buffalo Sabres who have eight.

Boston Bruins coach Jim Montgomery takes Coach of the Year honors

Jim Montgomery won his first career Coach of the Year award for leading his team in the record-breaking season. He took 79 out of 82 possible first votes for the Jack Adams award.

This is the 5th time a Bruins coach has taken home the honors joining Don Cherry (1975-76), Pat Burns (1997-98), Claude Julien (2008-09), and Bruce Cassidy (2019-20).

Montgomery was previously cut by the Dallas Stars in December 2019 due to his alcoholism, so he has come a long way and here’s how he discussed it during his acceptance speech.

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Even though the Bruins did not go to the Stanley Cup Final, they still got to bring home some hardware from the magical season.