The Boston Bruins' record-setting regular season is officially over.
The Black and Gold capped things off with a 5-4 win over the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday night, bringing their record to 65-12-5. Though the Bruins had already long wrapped up the Presidents' Trophy, NHL wins record and NHL points record, the year-ending victory provided an opportunity for Boston to reflect on its insanely successful campaign.
Well, for a few minutes anyway.
"We took five minutes and celebrated it," Jeremy Swayman -- who locked up the William M. Jennings Trophy for he and Linus Ullmark with the win -- said, as seen on NESN's postgame coverage. "Then we moved on. We know that there's a bigger goal in mind. That's definitely a feather in our cap for what we've accomplished so far, and we're going to take that confidence into the playoffs.
"That's important because we trust in our abilities. It's going to get us through games when the going gets tough, but at the same time, this is something where we're playing for bigger and better things. This is going to be good experience for us moving forward."
The Bruins haven't exactly been the face of adversity this season. We've pretty much known that they were going to roll to the Eastern Conference's top seed by January, but a pair of recent injury scares was enough to get the juices flowing, albeit briefly.
Linus Ullmark, who will almost certainly take home the Vezina Trophy, and Patrice Bergeron, who is a near lock to win his sixth Selke Trophy, each were ruled out during the previous games for precautionary reasons. Naturally, the Bruins stepped up each time and still delivered wins in those games, which is something head coach Jim Montgomery admires about his team.
"There's numerous statistical metrics you can look at that make the season special" Montgomery said postgame, per team-provided video. "But for me, it's how much those guys care about playing for each other. That's what was special."
Boston will now look toward the postseason with it's historic regular season in the rear-view mirror. The Bruins will take on the Florida Panthers in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, kicking off the start of what is expected to be a very long playoff run.
