The Bruins may have to clear out some space at the Garden, for they have a lot of hardware coming back from Sin City following the 2009 NHL Awards.

Tim Thomas was named the Vezina Trophy Winner, recognizing him as the top netminder in the league. He also captured the William Jennings Trophy earlier in the night (along with outgoing back-up Manny Fernandez) as the goaltenders for the club finishing the regular season having surrendered the fewest goals (196).Thomas is just the second Bruins goalie in 50 years to snare the coveted Vezina, which is awarded “to the goalkeeper adjudged to be the best at his position.”

Also picking up hardware was captain Zdeno Chara, winning his first Norris Trophy, awarded "to the defense player who demonstrates throughout the season the greatest all-round ability in the position” Chara beat out six-time Norris Trophy winner Nicklas Lidstrom of the Detroit Red Wingd, and Washington Capitals defenseman Mike Green. Chara is the third different Bruin to capture the Norris, joining legends Ray Bourque who won the award five times and Bobby Orr, generally considered the greatest hockey player of all time, who won the award eight times.

Rounding out the hat-trick was Bruins coach Claude Julien, who won a well-deserved Jack Adams Award, which is awarded “to the head coach who has contributed the most to his team’s success.” In a nice touch, Julien was presented the award by former Bruins coach Pat Burns, who himself won the award on three different occasions, once with the Bruins, and prior to that with Toronto and Montreal.

The Boston Bruins have agreed to terms with winger Michael Ryder on a three-year deal at $4 million per season.

According the NHL, the Jack Adams Award is an annual award presented by the National Hockey League Broadcasters’ Association to the NHL coach adjudged to have contributed the most to his team’s success.

Listening to the supposed national expert’s picks for coach of the year makes me sick. You wouldn’t know that Claude Julien has the Bruins, who many picked to finish nowhere near a playoff spot, sitting in 7th place. Instead, Versus and ESPN has  coaches such as Mike Babcock, Bruce Boudreau, Guy Carbonneau, and Ron Wilson picked to be leading candidates for the award. There wasn’t even a mention of Bruin’s coach Claude Julien. That reason, I have no idea.

Now I’m not just being a homer and believe that Claude Julien is the Bill Belichick of hockey, because i don’t. As a matter of fact I wanted to see Mike Milbury behind the bench when the Bruins were searching for a head coach after the Dave Lewis debacle.  So why am I lobbying for Julien as Coach of the Year, because no coach has done more with what he’s been dealt this year. No other coach has gotten more from their team than the Bruin’s coach.

The national media thinks otherwise. What really upsets me is that Julien is not even mentioned for the award after the job of transforming a last place team into a playoff contender. I was so ticked off by this, that I started finding reasons why one of their candidates were better than Julien. I couldn’t find much, so hear are my arguments. What I have done is compiled a list of the leading candidates according to national opinions.

Boston plays Montreal. Boston loses to Montreal. Sound familiar? That’s because the very scenario has happened all seven times the B’s have faced off against the Habs this season.

The reeling Bruins dropped another one to their northern rivals last night at the Garden. Just how bad have things gotten for the Bruins in the last couple of weeks? The B’s have only managed three wins out of 11 games this month, Philadelphia and Buffalo are within two points of Boston for the final two playoff spots and Washington sits only three points back.

The B’s may have been home last night but it looked like an away game, as Montreal fans flooded the Garden. There were giant pockets of red, white, and blue throughout the sea of fans. Although, Montreal fans are well traveled and Boston is only a hop, skip and a jump from Montreal, as a Bruins fan this is like Fenway Park having more Yankee fans attending the rival game than Red Sox fans.

Needless to say, Boston needs something to hold onto a playoff spot. What that is, I don’t know if Claude Julien even has the answer. One thing that is for sure, is Boston cant score. Last night’s game the B’s scored twice on 36 shots. Both goals scored by defensemen, Mark Stuart and Dennis Wideman. The Bruins need some of their forwards not named Chuck Kobasew to start putting the puck in the net. In Boston’s last six games the B’s defence and Kobasew has scored 100% of their goals. Simply, the B’s are not getting enough production from the forwards.

Boston Bruins forward Glen Metropolithas been nominated for The Bill Masterton Trophy. The Masterton Trophy is awarded to National Hockey League player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to hockey. For the second year in a row a Boston Bruin is up for the award.

You may remember last year when Boston’s young forward Phil Kessel won the award. Kessel was diagnosed with testicular cancer in early December. He played a Dec. 9 game against New Jersey, knowing he would be admitted to the hospital for surgery on Dec. 12. He missed only 12 games before returning to the club.

This year Glen Metropolit didn’t have to overcome life threatening odds but he did endured much of the same uncertainty of playing in the NHL. After splitting time last season with the Atlanta Thrashers and the St. Louis Blues, Metropolit had an extremely difficult time finding an NHL team that was interested in his services. With a rather successful campaign split between the two teams, no NHL GM had called Glen by the middle of the summer.

Metropolit was all set to pack up his bags and cross the Atlantic to play in Helsinki with his old team Jokerit. A team that Glen had played for in the 2003-04 season. He enjoyed good success with Jokerit, leading the team in points and being very popular with the fans. One of his favorite spots, on the outside of the left faceoff circle in the offensive zone, was even dubbed "Metro’s office" by TV commentators and fans.

In a very entertaining hockey game, the Boston Bruins defeated the Washington Capitals at the Garden yesterday afternoon 2-1. The Bruins avenged an early week lost to the Caps, in which they let in ten goals, and snapped a three game losing streak.

Alex Auld played well in net for the B’s, only relinquishing one Washington goal, an early first period powerplay tally by Brooks Laich. Auld ended with 23 saves on the day and gave the B’s a chance at the end of the game.

The game started off with two consecutive fights when Milan Lucic dropped the mitts 5 seconds into the game and Shawn Thornton 10 seconds after that.

“We wanted to try to get the momentum our side and really try to get the fans into it, and I thought maybe it was a good idea to get it going right [then],” Lucic explained. “It was back just like last year, junior-style, back up and take the helmet off.” bostonbruins.com

“I think our guys just showed that we got pushed around last time in Washington, [and] we were ready for whatever they were going to throw at us,” said Coach Claude Julien. bostonbruins.com

The real story of the game was Boston’s ability to shut down Alexander Ovekchin to only an assist. Ovekchin tallied 3 goals and 2 assist earlier in the week against the B’s. The Cap’s star seemed frustrated and didn’t have much space, as the Bruins put a body on him every opportunity they could.

The Bruins lost their third consecutive game last night against a team that is behind them in the standings in the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Leafs, playing inspired hockey as of late, have won seven of their last 10 games and spanked the Bruins 8-2 at the Garden last night.

The Maple Leafs entered with the league’s 24th ranked power play. Yet, the Bruins allowed four powerplay tallies to Toronto. The Leafs special teams’ dominance on the penalty kill was equally impressive as they killed off all six of the B’s powerplays.

Tim Thomas was pulled yet again, allowing five goals on 23 shots. In Thomas’ last two outing he has pulled a total of three times, a far cry away from being that NHL all-star the Bruins need him to be.

This team is only going to go as far as their goaltending will take them and its important for Thomas to get out of this mini-funk his is in. Otherwise the Bruins will miss the playoffs again.

"I don’t think it’s time to panic," Boston coach Claude Julien said. "It’s certainly time to make the adjustments and address. I don’t know if it’s we’re totally out of sync or the pressure. We’ve just got to take a step back." -nhl.com-

Let’s Hope Julien rights the ship Saturday night against the Capitals. The Bruins will look for payback from the last time these two teams faced off, when Washington skated to a 10-2 victory. The puck drops at 1, at the TD Bank North Garden.