Monday 29 April 2013

Gameday 100 (Sun, 28 Apr) - Results

Ottawa v Boston 4-2 - The Ottawa Senators finally beat the Boston Bruins. Their reward for Sunday's victory is not having to face the team that beat them four out of five times this season in the first round of the 2013 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Jean-Gabriel Pageau broke a 2-2 tie on a rebound with 3:34 remaining in regulation as the Senators beat Boston 4-2 and clinched the No. 7 seed in the Eastern Conference at TD Garden. Boston had won the previous four meetings against Ottawa this season. With their win in the game that was rescheduled because of the April 15 Boston Marathon bombings, the Senators moved ahead of the New York Islanders and will face the Montreal Canadiens in the first round of the playoffs. The loss cost the Bruins their chance to win a third straight Northeast Division title and earn the No. 2 seed in the East. Instead, the Bruins will be the No. 4 seed and face the fifth-seeded Toronto Maple Leafs in a best-of-seven series starting this week. The Bruins won just two of their last nine games in the regular season (2-5-2). Now they're hoping the postseason brings better results. Marc Methot's shot from the left point went through traffic on Tuukka Rask, who couldn't stop Pageau's rebound chance. Rask finished with 18 saves. Robin Lehner earned the win for Ottawa with 34 saves. Kyle Turris sealed the win with an empty-net goal with 36.5 seconds left. The Sens had not only lost their four previous matches with Boston, but had lost all by just one goal and were outscored 9-6 in the series. Now Alfredsson gets the matchup with Montreal he's wanted in his lengthy career. The Bruins tied the game at 2 off the opening faceoff in the third period. After Milan Lucic's cross-ice pass, Dennis Seidenberg skated to the top of the right circle and blasted a slap shot past Lehner 14 seconds into the last session. However, for the eighth time in their last nine games the Bruins failed to exceed two goals. The Bruins' offense will have to improve if they're going to make a deeper run than last season, when they lost to Washington in the first round. With so much at stake in this final game of the regular season, it was surprise that there was a playoff atmosphere. The first period featured 22 combined shots on net (13 by the Bruins) and 20 hits by both teams. The Senators scored the lone goal of the session with some hard work in front of the net by Erik Condra. After Condra dished the puck to Pageau in the slot, Rask stopped Pageau's shot, but Condra fought his way to the front and buried the rebound for a 1-0 lead at 16:59. It was Condra's first goal in 29 games. Ottawa doubled its lead at 10:33 of the second period. Jared Cowan scored his first goal of the season with a slap shot from the blue line straight ahead through traffic and past Rask. It took nearly 40 minutes of play for the Bruins to finally get on the board. Rich Peverley started the scoring play and ended it by skating the puck out of the zone, dishing it to Wade Redden at the red line and then scoring with a wrist shot from the slot at 19:56 on the power play. Redden took a crushing hit along the right wall from Methot to set up Peverley for the score that cut the Senators' lead to 2-1.

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