The Boston Bruins are a professional ice hockey team based in Boston, Massachusetts. They are members of the Northeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL). The team has been in existence since 1924, entering the league as the first United States-based expansion franchise. They are also an Original Six team, along with the Toronto Maple Leafs, Detroit Red Wings, New York Rangers, Montreal Canadiens, and Chicago Blackhawks. Boston currently has the second most Stanley Cup championships by an American team (5); Detroit has 11. Their home arena is the TD Garden, where they have played since 1995 after leaving the Boston Garden (which had been their home since 1928).

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Franchise history

The Pre-World War II years

In 1923, at the convincing of Boston grocery tycoon Charles Adams, the National Hockey League decided to expand to the United States. Adams had fallen in love with hockey while watching, in person, the 1924 Stanley Cup Finals between the NHL champion Montreal Canadiens, and the WCHL champion Calgary Tigers. He persuaded the NHL to grant him a franchise for Boston, which occurred on November 1, 1924. With the Montreal Maroons, the team was one of the NHL's first two expansion teams.

Adams' first act was to hire Art Ross, a former star player and innovator, as general manager. Ross would be the face of the franchise for thirty years, including four separate stints as coach.

Adams directed Ross to come up with a nickname that would portray an untamed animal displaying speed, agility, and cunning. Ross came up with "Bruins", an Old English word used for brown bears in classic folk-tales. The team's bearlike nickname also went along with the team's original uniform colors of brown and yellow, which came from Adams' grocery chain, First National Stores. ^[1]

It was on December 1, 1924, that the new Bruins team would play their very first NHL game against the Maroons, playing them at what was the Boston Arena, with the Bruins winning the game by a 2-1 score. But the team only managed a 6-24-0 record (for last place) in its first season, and would play three more seasons in the Boston Arena, after which the Bruins became the main tenant of what would become the famous Boston Garden, while the old Boston Arena facility was eventually taken over by Northeastern University, and renamed the Matthews Arena, the world's oldest existing indoor ice hockey venue (b.1910), when the university renovated it in 1979. In their third season, 1926–27, the team markedly improved. Ross took advantage of the collapse of the Western Hockey League to purchase several western stars, including the team's first great star, a defenseman from Fort Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan named Eddie Shore. The Bruins reached the Stanley Cup Final despite finishing only one game above .500, but lost to the Ottawa Senators. In 1929 the Bruins defeated the New York Rangers to win their first Stanley Cup. Standout players on the first championship team included Shore, Harry Oliver, Dit Clapper, Dutch Gainor and goaltender Tiny Thompson. The 1928–29 season was the first played at Boston Garden, which Adams had built after guaranteeing his backers $500,000 in gate receipts over the next five years. The season after that, 1929–30, the Bruins posted the best-ever regular season winning percentage in the NHL (an astonishing .875, winning 38 out of 44 games, a record which still stands), but would lose to the Montreal Canadiens in the Final.

The 1930s Bruins team included Shore, Thompson, Clapper, Babe Siebert and Cooney Weiland. The team led the league's standings five times in that decade. In 1939, the team changed its uniform colors from brown and yellow to the current black and gold, and captured the second Stanley Cup in franchise history. That year, Thompson was traded for rookie goaltender Frank Brimsek. Brimsek had an award-winning season, capturing the Vezina and Calder Trophies, becoming the first rookie named to the NHL First All-Star Team, and earning the nickname "Mr. Zero." The team skating in front of Thompson included Bill Cowley, Shore, Clapper and "Sudden Death" Mel Hill (who scored three overtime goals in one playoff series), together with the "Kraut Line" of center Milt Schmidt, right winger Bobby Bauer and left winger Woody Dumart. In 1940 Shore was traded to the struggling New York Americans for his final NHL season. In 1941 the Bruins won their third Stanley Cup after losing only eight games and finishing first in the regular season. It was their last Stanley Cup for 29 years.

World War II and the "Original Six" Era

World War II affected the Bruins more than most teams; Brimsek and the "Krauts" all enlisted after the 1940–41 Cup win, and lost the most productive years of their careers at war. Cowley, assisted by veteran player Clapper and Busher Jackson, was the team's remaining star. Even though the NHL had by 1943 been reduced to the six teams that would in the modern era be called the "Original Six", talent was depleted enough that freak seasons could take place, as in 1944, when Bruin Herb Cain would set the then-NHL record for points in a season with 82. But the Bruins didn't make the playoffs that season, and Cain would be out of the NHL two years later.

The stars would return for 1945–46, and Clapper led the team back to the Stanley Cup Final as player-coach. He retired as a player after the next season, becoming the first player in history to play twenty NHL seasons, but stayed on as coach for two more years. Unfortunately, Brimsek was not as good as he was before the war, and after 1946 the Bruins lost in the first playoff round three straight years, resulting in Clapper's resignation. Brimsek was traded to the last-place Chicago Black Hawks in 1949, (citing a wish to help his brother with a business he was starting), followed by the unfortunate banning of young star Don Gallinger for life on suspicion of gambling. The only remaining quality young player who stayed with the team for any length was forward Johnny Peirson, who would later be the team's television color commentator in the 1970s.

During the 1948–49 season, the original form of the "spoked-B" logo, with a small number "24" to the left of the capital B signifying the calendar year in the 20th century in which the Bruins team first played, and a similarly small "49" to the right of the "B", for the then-current season's calendar year in the 20th century, ^[2] appeared on their home uniforms--a nod to the Boston area's nickname of "The Hub." The following season, the logo was modified into the basic "spoked-B" form that would be used, virtually unchanged (except for certain proportions within the logo) through the 1993–94 season.

The 1950s began with Charles Adams' son Weston (who had been team president since 1936) facing financial trouble. He was forced to accept a buyout offer from Walter A. Brown, the owner of the National Basketball Association's Boston Celtics and the Garden, in 1951. Although there were some instances of success (such as making the Stanley Cup Final in 1953, 1957 and 1958, only to lose to the Montreal Canadiens each time), the Bruins mustered only four winning seasons between 1947 and 1967. They missed the playoffs eight straight years between 1960 and 1967.

In 1954, on New Year's Day, Robert Skrak, an assistant to Frank Zamboni, the inventor of the best known ice resurfacing machine of the time, demonstrated a very early model of the machine at Boston Garden to the team management, and as a result, the Bruins ordered one of the then-produced "Model E" resurfacers to be used at the Garden, the first known NHL team to acquire one of the soon-to-be-ubiquitous "Zambonis" for their own use. The Bruins' Zamboni Model E, factory serial number 21, eventually ended up in the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto in 1988 for preservation. ^[3]

On January 18, 1958, a milestone in NHL history occurred, as the first black Canadian person ever to play in the NHL stepped onto the ice for the Bruins, Fredericton, New Brunswick-born left wing Willie O'Ree. He would play in 45 games for the Bruins, in the 1957–58 and 1960–61 seasons, scoring six goals and ten assists in his NHL career.

During this period, the farm system of the Bruins was not as expansive or well-developed as most of the other five teams. The Bruins sought players not protected by the other teams, and in like fashion to the aforementioned signing of Willie O'Ree, the team signed Tommy Williams from the 1960 Olympic-gold medal winning American national men's hockey team — at the time the only American player in the NHL — in 1962. The "Uke Line" — named for the Ukrainian heritage of Johnny Bucyk and Vic Stasiuk (their linemate, Bronco Horvath, was largely Hungarian) — came to Boston and enjoyed four productive offensive seasons even as the Bruins were struggling overall.

Expansion and the Big Bad Bruins

Weston Adams repurchased the Bruins in 1964 after Brown's death and set about rebuilding the team. Adams signed a defenseman from Parry Sound, Ontario, named Bobby Orr, who entered the league in 1966 and would become, in the eyes of many, the greatest player of all time. He was announced that season's winner of the Calder Memorial Trophy for Rookie of the Year and named to the Second NHL All-Star Team. When asked about Orr's NHL debut game, October 19, 1966, against the Detroit Red Wings, then-Bruins coach Harry Sinden recalled:

"Our fans had heard about this kid for a few years now. There was a lot of pressure on him, but he met all the expectations. He was a star from the moment they played the national anthem in the opening game of the season."

The Bruins then obtained young forwards Phil Esposito, Ken Hodge and Fred Stanfield from Chicago in a deal that turned out to be very one-sided. Hodge and Stanfield became key elements of the Bruins' success, and Esposito, who centered a line with Hodge and Wayne Cashman, would become the league's top goal-scorer and the first NHL player to break the 100–point mark, setting many goal- and point-scoring records. Esposito remains one of four players to win the Art Ross Trophy four consecutive seasons (the other three are Jaromir Jagr, Wayne Gretzky and Gordie Howe). With other stars like forwards Bucyk, John McKenzie, Derek Sanderson and Hodge, steady defenders like Dallas Smith and goaltender Gerry Cheevers, the "Big Bad Bruins" became one of the league's top teams from the late 1960s through the 1970s.



In 1970, a 29–year Stanley Cup drought came to an end in Boston, as the Bruins defeated the St. Louis Blues in four games in the Final. Orr scored the game-winning goal in overtime to clinch the stanley Cup. The same season was Orr's most awarded — the third of eight consecutive years he won the James Norris Memorial Trophy as the top defenseman in the NHL — and he won the Art Ross Trophy, the Conn Smythe Trophy, and the Hart Memorial Trophy, the only player to win those four awards all in the same season.

The 1970–71 season was, in retrospect, the high watermark of the Seventies for Boston. While Sinden temporarily retired from hockey to enter business (he was replaced by ex-Bruin and Canadien defenceman Tom Johnson) the Bruins' set dozens of offensive scoring records: they had seven of the league's top ten scorers — a feat not achieved before or since — set the record for wins in a season, and in a league that had never seen a 100–point scorer before 1969 (Esposito had 126), the Bruins had four that year. All four (Orr, Esposito, Bucyk and Hodge) were named First Team All-Stars, a feat matched in the expansion era only by the 1976–77 Canadiens. Boston were favorate to repeat as Cup champions, but ran into a roadblock in the playoffs. Up 5–1 at one point in game two of the quarterfinals against the Canadiens (and rookie goaltender Ken Dryden), the Bruins squandered the lead to lose 7–5. The Bruins never recovered and lost the series in seven games.

While the Bruins were not quite as dominant the next season (although only three points behind the 1971 pace), Esposito and Orr were once again one-two in the scoring standings (followed by Bucyk in ninth place) and they regained the Stanley Cup by defeating the New York Rangers in six games in the Finals. The 1972 Cup win is Boston's most recent to date. Rangers blue liner Brad Park, who came runner-up to Orr's five-year (then) monopoly, said, "Bobby Orr was — didn't make — the difference."

Boston remained a strong contender through the 1970s (despite losing Cheevers, McKenzie, Sanderson, and other stars to the World Hockey Association), only to come up short in the playoffs. Although they had three 100–point scorers on the team (Esposito, Orr, and Hodge), they lost the 1974 Final to the Philadelphia Flyers.

Don Cherry stepped behind the bench as the new coach in 1974–75. The Bruins stocked themselves with enforcers and grinders, and remained competitive under Cherry's reign, the so-called "Lunch Pail A.C.," behind players such as Gregg Sheppard, Terry O'Reilly, Stan Jonathan and Peter McNab.

Orr left the Bruins for the Hawks in 1976, and retired after many knee operations in 1979. The Bruins traded Esposito and Carol Vadnais for Brad Park, Jean Ratelle and Joe Zanussi to the Rangers. The trade was particularly controversial for both Bruins and Rangers fans, as Esposito was one of the most popular Bruins players, while Park and Ratelle were Rangers stalwarts. However, Park and Ratelle maintained their skill level with Boston, with Park filling the void left by Orr. ^[4] They made the semifinals again, losing to the Flyers.

Cheevers returned from the WHA in 1976, and the Bruins got past the Flyers in the semifinals, but lost to the Canadiens in the Final for the Cup. The story would repeat itself in 1978 - with a balanced attack that saw Boston have eleven players with 20+ goal seasons, still the NHL record - as the Bruins made the Final once more, but lost to a Canadiens team that had recorded the best regular season in modern history. After that series, Johnny Bucyk retired, holding virtually every Bruins' career longevity and scoring mark to that time.

The 1979 semifinal series against the Habs proved to be Cherry's undoing. In the deciding seventh game, the Bruins, up by a goal, were called for having too many men on the ice in the late stages of the third period. Montreal tied the game on the ensuing power play and won in overtime. Never popular with Harry Sinden, by then the Bruins' general manager, Cherry left the team in the off-season for the Colorado Rockies.

At Madison Square Garden, on December 23, 1979, a New York Rangers fan stole Stan Jonathan's stick, hitting him with it during a post-game scrum. When other fans got involved, Terry O'Reilly charged into the stands followed by his teammates. The game's TV commentator remarked that "they're going to pull that guy apart". O'Reilly, a future team captain, received an eight-game suspension for the brawl.

The Eighties and Nineties

Coupled with front-office dislike of Cherry's outspoken ways, 1979 saw new head coach Fred Creighton - himself replaced by a newly-retired Cheevers the following year - and the coming of Ray Bourque. The defenseman remained with the team for over two decades.

The Bruins made the playoffs every year through the 1980s behind stars such as Park, Bourque and Rick Middleton — and had the league's best record in 1983 behind a Vezina Trophy-winning season from ex-Flyer goaltender Pete Peeters — but usually did not get very far in the playoffs.

By the late 1980s, Bourque, Cam Neely, Keith Crowder and Bob Sweeney would lead the Bruins to another Cup Final appearance in 1988 against the Edmonton Oilers. The Bruins lost in a four-game sweep, but created a memorable moment in the would-be fourth game when in the second period with the game tied 3–3, a blown fuse put the lights out at the Boston Garden. The rest of the game was cancelled and the series shifted to Edmonton. The Oilers completed the sweep, 6–3, back at Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton, in what was originally scheduled as Game Five.

Boston returned to the Stanley Cup Final in 1990 (with Neely, Bourque, Craig Janney, Bobby Carpenter and rookie Don Sweeney, and former Oiler goalie Andy Moog and Rejean Lemelin splitting goaltending duties), but would again lose to the Oilers, this time in five games.

In 1988, 1990–92 and 1994, they defeated their Original Six arch-nemesis in the playoffs, the Montreal Canadiens, getting some revenge for a rivalry which had up to then been lopsided in the Canadiens' favor in playoff action. In 1991 and 1992, they suffered two consecutive Conference Final losses to the eventual Cup champion, the Mario Lemieux-led Pittsburgh Penguins.

Since the 1993 season, Boston has not gotten past the second round of the playoffs despite the talent of Adam Oates, Rick Tocchet and Jozef Stumpel. The 1993 season ended disappointingly for several reasons. Despite finishing with the second-best regular season record after Pittsburgh, Boston was swept in the first-round by the Buffalo Sabres. During the postseason awards ceremony, Bruin players finished as runner-up on many of the honors (Bourque for the Norris, Oates for the Art Ross and Lady Byng Trophy, Joe Juneau [who had broken the NHL record for assists in a season by a left-winger, a mark he still holds] for the Calder Trophy, Dave Poulin for the Frank J. Selke Trophy, Moog for the William M. Jennings Trophy, and Brian Sutter for the Jack Adams Award), although Bourque made the NHL All-Star First Team and Juneau the NHL All-Rookie Team.

In 1997, Boston missed the playoffs for the first time in 30 years,(and for first time in the expansion era) having set the North American major professional record for most consecutive seasons in the playoffs.

The 1994-95 season would be the Bruins last at the Boston Garden. They played their final game at the fabled arena on September 28, 1995 in an exhibition matchup against the Montreal Canadiens. They subsequently moved into the FleetCenter, now known as the TD Garden.

Historically, their most bitter arch rivals have been the Montreal Canadiens, whom the Bruins have played a record 30 times in the playoffs. The Bruins also have a rivalry with the New York Rangers,and before the move to Carolina,had a heated rivalry with the Hartford Whalers, much like the rivalry between the Yankees and Red Sox, although the rivalry with the Canadiens is much more intense.

The 21st century

After a 3-4-1 start, the Bruins fired head coach Pat Burns and went with Mike Keenan for the rest of the way. Despite a fifteen-point improvement from the previous season, the Bruins missed the playoffs in 2000–01 by just one point. Leading scorer Jason Allison led the Bruins.

The following season, 2001–02, the Bruins improved again with another thirteen points, winning their first Northeast Division title since 1993 with a core built around Joe Thornton, Sergei Samsonov, Brian Rolston, Bill Guerin, Mike Knuble and the newly acquired Glen Murray. Their regular season success didn't translate to the postseason, as they lost in six games to the underdog eighth-place Canadiens in the first round.

The 2002–03 season found the Bruins platooning their goaltending staff between Steve Shields and John Grahame for most of the season. A mid-season trade brought in veteran Jeff Hackett. In the midst of a late-season slump, general manager Mike O'Connell fired head coach Robbie Ftorek with nine games to go and named himself interim coach. The Bruins managed to finish seventh in the East, but lost to the eventual Stanley Cup Champion New Jersey Devils in five games.

In 2003–04, the Bruins began the season with ex-Toronto Maple Leaf goalie Felix Potvin. Later in the season, the Bruins put rookie Andrew Raycroft into the starting role. Raycroft eventually won the Calder Award that season. The Bruins went on to win another division title and appeared to get past the first round for the first time in five years with a 3–1 series lead on the rival Canadiens. The Canadiens rallied back, however, to win three straight games, upsetting the Bruins.

The 2004–05 NHL season was wiped out by a lockout, and the Bruins had a lot of space within the new salary cap implemented for 2005–06. Bruins management eschewed younger free agents in favor of older veterans such as Alexei Zhamnov and Brian Leetch. The newcomers were oft-injured, and by the end of November, the Bruins team traded their captain and franchise player, Joe Thornton (who went on to win the Art Ross and Hart Trophies). In exchange, the Bruins received Marco Sturm, Brad Stuart and Wayne Primeau from the San Jose Sharks.

After losing ten of eleven games before the trade (while the Sharks won Thornton's first seven games in San Jose), the Bruins came back with a 3–0 victory over the league-leading Ottawa Senators, as rookie goaltender Hannu Toivonen earned his first career NHL shutout victory. When Toivonen went down (for the rest of the season) with an injury in January, journeyman goalie Tim Thomas started sixteen straight games and brought the Bruins back into the playoff run. Two points out of eighth place at the Winter Olympic break, the Bruins fired general manager Mike O'Connell in March and the Bruins missed the playoffs for the first time in five years. They finished thirteenth in the Eastern Conference and earned the fifth pick in the NHL Draft Lottery, which they used to draft U.S. college player Phil Kessel, who dropped out of college early to sign with the team on August 17, 2006.

Peter Chiarelli was hired as the new GM of the team. Head coach Mike Sullivan was fired and Dave Lewis, former coach of the Detroit Red Wings, was hired to replace him while Marc Habscheid and Doug Houda were named associate coaches. The Bruins signed Zdeno Chara, one of the most coveted defensemen in the NHL and a former NHL All-Star, from the Senators, and Marc Savard, who finished just three points short of a 100–point season in 2005–06 with the Atlanta Thrashers, to long-term deals. Bergeron was re-signed by the Bruins on August 22, 2006, to a multi-year contract, keeping the developing player on the team for some years to come.

The 2006–07 season ended in the team finishing in last place in the division. The Bruins traded Brad Stuart and Wayne Primeau to the Calgary Flames for Andrew Ference and forward Chuck Kobasew.

The 2007–08 season ended on a bright note for the Bruins when they forced the Canadiens to play a 7-game playoff series, including a memorable Game 6 in which Boston came back to win 5–4. Although Bruins center Patrice Bergeron was injured with a concussion most of the season, youngsters Milan Lucic, David Krejci, Vladimir Sobotka, and Petteri Nokelainian showed promise in the playoffs. In the offseason The Bruins lost center Glen Metropolit to Eastern Conference rival Philadelphia Flyers. They did however sign winger Michael Ryder and came to an agreement with Winger Blake Wheeler who left the Minnesota Golden Gophers early. Going into training camp the Bruins released fan-favorite Winger Glen Murray and traded defenseman Andrew Alberts to the Flyers.

Rejuvenation in Boston

After a very disappointing season in which the Bruins played with little passion and the coaching staff showed very little themselves, a shakeup occurred. On June 15, Dave Lewis was fired along with Marc Habscheid (who devised the power play set up). ^[5] Only Habscheid is staying on with the organization but in different roles. Lewis was hired to be an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Kings. Peter Chiarelli has said that he didn't like the inconsistent play of the team which played a part in the firings. The Bruins officially announced on June 21, 2007, that Claude Julien, who was fired late in the 2006–07 season from the New Jersey Devils, had been named as the new Bruins head coach. ^[6] On August 1, 2007, the Bruins hired Craig Ramsay and Geoff Ward as assistant coaches. ^[7]

The Bruins also unveiled a new logo basically using a serifed letter "B" for the first time since the 1935–36 NHL season, and a brand new shoulder patch, closely based on the main jersey logo used until the 1931–32 NHL season. The New England Hockey Journal's online website displayed the new home and away jerseys for the Bruins. ^[8] Unlike the other NHL teams, but similar to all of the "Original Six" teams, the Bruins did not make radical changes from their previous designs. Their new uniform design combines several features of many past Bruins uniforms, substituting the new logo, and adding an NHL logo just below the neck opening.

On June 22, 2007, the NHL entry draft took place, which had been called 'not as deep' as previous years; many experts said that none of the draft-eligible players would be playing in the NHL next year, and that the players would need some development time. The Bruins had the eighth overall pick in the draft, and selected Zach Hamill of the Western Hockey League's Everett Silvertips in the first round. On August 8, 2007, the Bruins signed Hamill to an entry-level contract, ^[9] but rejoined his junior team for the 2007–08 season. ^[10]

On September 18, 2007, the Johnstown Chiefs of the ECHL announced they had entered an affiliation agreement with the Bruins for the 07–08 season. ^[11] This affiliation ended after the 2007–08 season. ^[12]

During the 2007–2008 season NESN showed the 2 finalist jerseys (one with two yellow stripes on the bottom and the other without) and will be used as a new third "home" jersey starting in the 2008–2009 NHL season. The new "third" jersey, which premiered on November 24, 2008, is almost totally black, and places the "spoked-B" main logo on the shoulders, and uses the 1920s-inspired style of "retro" shoulder logo for home games, in a much larger size, on the front of the jersey.

The 2007–08 campaign saw the Bruins regain some respectability, finishing 41–29–12 (94 points) and making the playoffs. Despite many injuries and questions about their offense, the Bruins pushed the top-seeded Canadiens to seven games in the first round of the playoffs before falling. Their performance, despite a disappointing 5-0 lose in the key 7th game, rekindled interest in the team in sports-mad New England, where the Bruins had for years been heavily overshadowed by the Red Sox, Patriots and Celtics. On May 13, the Bruins resigned second-leading scorer Chuck Kobasew to a multi-year extension.

The 2008–09 season started off slowly, losing 5 of their first 7 games, a likely story for the Bruins of the 21st century. The Bruins would then go on to win 17 of their next 20 games leading many to see them as a revival of the "Big Bad Bruins" from the 1970s and '80s. As one reporter said, "After years of wandering in the NHL wilderness, the Boston Bruins appear to have been found, finally hitting on the combination of grit and skill that was the touchstone of the team's glory years more than three decades ago."

In November the Bruins played their first two Friday evening home games in over 30 years, resulting in a 4-2 win over the Florida Panthers on November 21, and a week later with a 7-2 win over the New York Islanders. On the day following the victory over the Islanders, the Bruins won a dominating 4-1 game over the defending Stanley Cup Champions, the Detroit Red Wings.

During the 2009 All-Star Weekend's "Skills Competition" event in Montreal's Bell Centre, Captain Zdeno Chara made history with the NHL's fastest measured "hardest shot" ever, with a clocked in speed of 105.4 mph (169.7 km/h) velocity. Also Blake Wheeler was name the MVP of the Young Stars game after scoring four goals.

The number of injured players, such as Andrew Ference and Marco Sturm in the 2008–09 season, has resulted in the Bruins' "player depth" seeing action from their AHL development team, the Providence Bruins being used, as with rookie defenseman Matt Hunwick and forward Byron Bitz seeing success with the NHL team.

The success that the Bruins enjoyed through the early part of the 08–09 season, which saw them accumulate a total record of 23-2-1 during the games played in November and December of 2008, started to elude them after suffering a 5-2 Boston home ice defeat on February 10, 2009 against the San Jose Sharks. This game was marketed as a possible Stanley Cup Final preview, with the highest-ranked team in either conference participating. However, the Bruins could not keep up with the Sharks, and the loss led into a 6-9-3 slump, leading up to the home game on March 22 against the New Jersey Devils. The Bruins convincingly defeated the New Jersey team 4-1, leading to the Bruins clinching the 2008–09 NHL Northeast Division regular season title with the win over the Devils, ^[13] and almost two weeks later, after stringing four additional victories together, the Bruins captured the 2008–09 NHL Eastern Conference first place position, going into the 2009 Stanley Cup playoffs, with a 1-0 shutout home ice win over the New York Rangers, ^[14] and following the Montreal Canadiens 3-1 home ice defeat ^[15] at the hands of the Pittsburgh Penguins on April 11, the 32nd Stanley Cup playoff series between the Bruins and Canadiens began on April 16, 2009. Montreal holds the advantage of 24 series won, to Bostons 8.

The Bruins qualified for the playoffs for the fifth time in the last nine years, and faced the Canadiens for the fourth time during that span. The Bruins helped to build upon their status as the highest-ranked team in the Eastern Conference by winning their conference quarterfinal playoff series over the Canadiens, since their victory over the Carolina Hurricanes in 1999, with a four game sweep of the Canadiens, for the first time since the 1992 playoffs. The Bruins' conference semifinals round against the Hurricanes, started with a win, followed by three straight losses where their play seemed to resemble that shown during the February-to-March 2009 slump. The losing streak ended on May 10th, with a 4-0 shut out, the very first playoff shutout ever for Tim Thomas, to bring the series to 3 and 2. The Bruins followed their game 5 win at home with an excellent game 6 performance in a 4-2 win in Carolina, tying the series 3-3, and forcing Game 7 on May 14th, 2009. The Bruins lost game 7 in a thrilling 3-2 overtime decision, in which Scott Walker, who was public enemy number one in Boston after a controversial game 5 hit on Aaron Ward, managed to end the series with a shot off a rebound.

The 2009 summer off-season saw the departure of long-time defensive forward P.J. Axelsson from Sweden, who signed a multi-year contract with his hometown Elitserien team Frolunda HC as his contract with Boston ended, a trade with the Carolina Hurricanes that saw veteran defenseman Aaron Ward head back to his former team, with Patrick Eaves coming in return, the signing of free agent defenseman Derek Morris, and of gritty center Steve Bégin, originally from archrival Montreal. Marco Sturm and Matt Hunwick, both injured during regular season play earlier in the '08-'09 season, are expected to be back in training camp at its start on September 12, 2009, while injured center David Krejci, and still-unsigned (as of August 1, 2009) restricted free agent, top scoring forward Phil Kessel, also recovering from an injury, are expected to be available for play before the end of the 2009 calendar year.

Ownership

Since 1975 the team has been owned by Jeremy Jacobs. Jacobs represents the club on the NHL's Board of Governors, and serves on its Executive Committee. At the NHL Board of Governors meeting in June 2007, Jacobs was elected Chairman of the Board, replacing the Calgary Flames' Harley Hotchkiss, who stepped down after 12 years in the position. He has frequently been listed by Sports Business Journal as one of the most influential people in sports in its annual poll ^[16] and by Hockey News ^[17]. Jacobs company owns the TD Garden and he is partners with John Henry, owner of the Red Sox, in the New England Sports Network(NESN). Prior to the new collective bargaining agreement, fans felt team management wasn't willing to spend to win the Stanley Cup. ^[18] In his 35 years as owner, the Bruins have not won the Stanley Cup. While his public image has improved with a complete change in management including new General Manager Peter Chiarelli, Coach Claude Julien and Cam Neely's arrival, the management of the team in the past earned him spots on the page2 polls of "The Worst Owners in Sports", ^[19] and #7 on their 2005 "Greediest Owners In sports" list. ^[20]

Fortunately, Jacobs has invested in the team and rebuilding the front office to make the team more competitive. The Bruins were the second highest ranked team in the NHL in the 2008-2009 season and are the top seeded team in the East.

The current administrators in the Bruins front office are:

• Jeremy Jacobs- Owner
• Charlie Jacobs- Principal
• Peter Chiarelli- General Manager
• Cam Neely- Vice President
• Harry Sinden- Senior Advisor to the Owner

"Unofficial" theme songs

When Boston television station WSBK-TV began showing Bruins games on television in 1967, the television station's managers wanted to come up with a suitable piece of music to air for the introduction of each Bruins game. Because the Boston Ballet's annual Christmas performance of The Nutcracker had become closely identified with Boston, The Ventures' instrumental rock version of the Nutcracker's overture, known as "Nutty", itself likely being inspired by the somewhat earlier Nut Rocker, was selected as the opening piece of music for Bruins telecasts. The song "Nutty" has been identified with the Bruins ever since, even though NESN, who now airs almost all of the Bruins' regular season and playoff games, has used a piece of original instrumental rock music for Bruins telecasts, that it had also used with all its Boston Red Sox televised games through the 2008 MLB season. The song "Nutty" is still sometimes played at the TD Garden during Bruins games. "Nutty" has also been covered by a popular Boston Irish rock band, Dropkick Murphys. Dropkick Murphys have also written a song about the Bruins, called "Time To Go", and have performed at Bruins games several times.

In the early 1970s, WSBK ran a weekly highlights show hosted by Tom Larson. The instrumental song "Toad" by the late-60s British supergroup Cream was the opening and closing theme for the show.

On ice, the song "Paree," a 1920s hit tune written by Leo Robin and Jose Padilla, has been played as an organ instrumental for decades, typically as the players enter the arena just before the start of each period and, for many years, after each Bruins' goal. It was introduced by John Kiley, the organist for the Bruins, the Boston Red Sox and the Boston Celtics from the 1950s through the 1980s, and is still played during Bruins' games.

The song "Kernkraft 400 (Sport Chant Stadium Remix)" by Zombie Nation is also a popular song at Bruins games, as it is played after every Bruins goal scored on home ice.

After every Bruins' win at the TD Garden, the song "Dirty Water", by the Standells, is played. The song is also played after every home game win for the Boston Red Sox, and has become an unofficial anthem for the city of Boston.

Media and broadcasters

• NESN

Jack Edwards - TV play-by-play
Andy Brickley - TV color analyst
Naoko Funayama - rink-side reporter ^[21]

• WBZ 98.5 FM (Boston flagship of the Boston Bruins Radio Network)

Dave Goucher Radio play-by-play
Bob Charles Beers Radio color analyst

Season-by-season record

''This is a partial list of the last five seasons completed by the Bruins. For the full season-by-season history, see List of Boston Bruins seasons

Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, OTL = Overtime Losses, Pts = Points, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against, PIM = Penalties in minutes''

Season	GP	W	L	T	OTL	Pts	GF	GA	PIM	Finish	Playoffs
2004–05	Season cancelled due to 2004–05 NHL lockout
2005–061	82	29	37	—	16	74	230	266	1162	5th, Northeast	Did not qualify
2006–07	82	35	41	—	6	76	219	289	1256	5th, Northeast	Did not qualify
2007–08	82	41	29	—	12	94	212	222	1069	3rd, Northeast	Lost in Conference Quarterfinals, 3–4 (Canadiens)
2008–09	82	53	19	—	10	116	274	196	1016	1st, Northeast	Lost in Conference Semifinals, 3-4 (Hurricanes)

Current roster

Updated December 5, 2008.


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