Bruins NHL Awards Recap: Bergeron, Ullmark, Montgomery Win

As expected, the Boston Bruins took home some hardware at the NHL Awards ceremony on Monday night.

After a record-breaking regular season that saw them break the records for most wins (65) and points in an NHL regular season, the Boston Bruins had five players named finalists for six awards. Bruins captain Patrice Bergeron was up for the Selke Award, goalie Linus Ullmark was a finalist for the Vezina Trophy, head coach Jim Montgomery was a finalist for the Jack Adams Award, and general manager Don Sweeney was up for the Jim Gregory Award, which was not announced on Monday night.

Here are your 2023 Boston Bruins NHL awards winners:

Patrice Bergeron, Selke Award

Bergeron broke the NHL record by winning his fifth Selke Trophy last season and has now padded that record with his sixth Selke Trophy and second-straight after winning last season. He also won the award in 2012, 2014, 2015, and 2017. This was the 12th straight season the Boston Bruins forward was nominated for the Frank J. Selke Trophy, given annually to the forward who best excels in the defensive aspects of the game as judged by the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association.

Patrice Bergeron scored 27 goals and 31 assists in 78 games this season and finished with a plus-35 rating, ranked fourth amongst NHL forwards. As always, the 37-year-old Boston Bruins center owned the faceoff dot this past season. The  6-foot-1, 196-pound pivot was one of only two players in the NHL to take 1,700 or more faceoffs and led the NHL with 1,043 faceoff wins. He also led the league with a 61.1 faceoff win percentage (minimum 1,000 faceoffs).

As they always seemed to do, Bergeron’s teammates followed his lead, and the Boston Bruins allowed a league-low 2.1 goals per game. Thanks to Bergeron’s defensive tenacity and dominance, the team’s penalty kill also finished atop the NHL with an 87.3 success rate.

The other Selke Trophy finalists were the Toronto Maple Leafs forward Mitch Marner and New Jersey Devils forward Nico Hischier.

Linus Ullmark, Vezina Award

Boston Bruins goalie Linus Ullmark is the winner of the 2023 Vezina Trophy.

After going 40-6-1 with a 1.89 GAA and a .938 save percentage in his second season with the Boston Bruins, Ullmark was named a Vezina Trophy finalist along with Winnipeg Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck and New York Islanders goaltender Ilya Sorokin.

Linus Ullmark led the NHL in wins (40), goals-against average (1.89), and save percentage (.938), becoming just the eighth goalie in NHL history to lead the league in all three categories and the first since Montreal Canadiens goalie Carey Price did it in 2014-15, in essentially capturing the triple crown for goaltenders. Ullmark also teamed with Jeremy Swayman to allow the fewest goals in the NHL this season and won the Jennings Trophy as the league’s best goaltending tandem.

Jim Montgomery, Jack Adams Award

In Montgomery’s first season behind the bench for the Boston Bruins, the team set NHL records in wins (65), and points (135), amongst numerous Bruins franchise records. As a result, the Boston Bruins won the Presidents’ Trophy for the second time in four seasons after finishing first overall in the 2019-20 regular season under former Bruins and current Vegas Golden Knights head coach Bruce Cassidy. The 2022-23 Boston Bruins were also the fourth team in the modern era to lead their division wire-to-wire and the first since 1943-44, when the Montreal Canadiens went 38-5 for 83 points.

Jim Montgomery and the 2022-23 Boston Bruins also recorded an NHL-record 14-game home winning streak from the start of a season (Oct. 15 to Dec. 3) and were the first team to post five win streaks of seven games or more in a season. The Bruins also had the second-highest club goal differential (+128) since the 1995-96 Detroit Red Wings (+144).

Montgomery became the fifth Boston Bruins head coach to win the Jack Adams joining Don Cherry (1975-76), Pat Burns (1997-98), Claude Julien (2008-09), and Bruce Cassidy (2019-20).

Pastrnak and Ullamark were also named to the NHL’s first all-star team, and defenseman Hampus Lindholm was named to the second team.