By: Joe Ballway, YawkeyTalkies Staff Writer
With just three games remaining and a likely playoff berth in the cards, it isn’t too early to assess a rollercoaster regular season for the Black and Gold. Here’s a look at some of the studs and duds of the 2009-10 season:
The Jack Bauer Award: Given to the player who best exemplifies mental toughness in the midst of crisis, standing out from the rest to deliver results in the clutch.
Recipient: Tuukka Rask
Runner-Up: Patrice Bergeron
Without a doubt the Bruins’ savior of the season, Tuukka has been cool as a cucumber while overtaking Tim Thomas as the #1 goaltender. Although the depths to which Thomas has sunk this season have been significantly overblown–he hasn’t been spectacular, but he certainly hasn’t deserved the magnitude of criticism he has received–Rask has clearly become the superior goaltender, leading the league in both goals against average (1.99) and save percentage (.930) despite having appeared in just 43 games. Often keeping the goal-starved Bruins in games with his calm aura and steady positioning, Rask has been positively Bauer-like in ensuring that this season isn’t bombed to pieces.
The Maurice Clarett Trophy: Because awarding something named the “Maurice Richard Trophy” to the highest-scoring Bruins player this season would be an insult to The Rocket’s legacy, it seemed appropriate to [...]

By: Joe Ballway, YawkeyTalkies Staff Writer
In the first period of Saturday night’s game against the Panthers, David Krejci skated up the boards and flung a desperate, bad-angle shot at Thomas Vokoun as he was forced into the corner. The puck caught the Florida netminder off guard, sneaking through his legs and across the line.
Then, with the game on the line in the third round of the shootout, Marc Savard skated in and fumbled the puck as he deked. Vokoun lost sight of the puck and stayed with Savard as it found its way underneath him, keeping the Bruins alive on another fortuitous bounce. Savard laughed visibly as he skated back to the bench–a loose reaction of joy better associated with the ’08-09 squad than this year’s embattled crew.
It looks like the Bruins are finally getting their breaks.
And now they’ll have the Olympic break, a two-week recess in which the players can ease up a little after stringing together four straight wins. Just one week after losing ten in a row and slipping to 12th in the conference, they’ve jumped all the way back up to 7th place. With four other teams nipping at their heels, however, momentum andconfidence from this four-game stretch will be important in getting the Bruins through the final quarter of [...]

By: Joe Ballway, YawkeyTalkies Staff Writer
Things have been hectic in the Hub of Hockey over the past week, and not only because of the Winter Classic. Here’s a look at some other developments that have been swirling:
-The Bruins inked 35-year old ex-sniper Miroslav Satan to a one year contract worth $700,000 on Sunday. Technically, it’s a half-year deal: with the season at its halfway point, Satan’s contract is only a $350,000 cap hit. But the Slovakian winger–age concerns aside–should bring a helpful scoring touch to Boston’s inconsistent offense, as he reached the 20-goal plateau every season from ’97-98 to ’06-07 and topped 30 four different times in that span. He should also provide some extra competition within a forward corps that has shown too much complacency and could use a little spark. He made his season debut last night against the Senators, showing promising chemistry on a line with Blake Wheeler and David Krejci and finishing +2 in 14:06 of ice time. Ironically enough, he wears #81.
-After a two-day layoff following the Classic, the Bruins played sloppily for the majority of a 3-2 loss against the Rangers Monday night. Facing a 2-0 third-period deficit, Boston showed signs of life and [...]