Jiri Smejkal and Jakob Chychrun scored second-period goals to propel the Ottawa Senators to a 3-1 win over host Boston on Tuesday, knocking the Bruins out of first place in the Atlantic Division as the regular season ended.
Boston (47-20-15, 109 points) lost for the third time in four games and wound up in second place behind Florida (52-24-6, 110 points). The Panthers beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-2 on Tuesday for their fourth straight win.
Pavel Zacha scored and Linus Ullmark made 17 saves for the Bruins.
Ottawa (37-41-4, 78 points) posted its third win in four games to end the season.
Smejkal collected his first NHL goal while Artem Zub also scored for the Senators. Ottawa goaltender Anton Forsberg was a rock, making a whopping 22 of his 34 saves in the third period.
An assist on Chychrun’s goal gave Brady Tkachuk his 349th point with the Senators, moving him past Mike Fisher for ninth on the franchise’s all-time list.
The Bruins had a 35-20 shot advantage.
After limiting Boston to three first-period shots, Ottawa officially took control with two goals in a 51-second span just past the midway mark of the game.
Smejkal broke the scoreless deadlock at 10:03 of the second period, taking Erik Brannstrom’s feed from the top of the circles and sliding a shot five-hole on Ullmark from the left dot. The puck was confirmed to have crossed the goal line following a video review.
The Senators made it 2-0 at 10:54. Chychrun buried another shot from the left circle after a loose puck in the neutral zone turned into Drake Batherson and Tkachuk making a pretty passing connection during a three-on-two break.
Forsberg was up to the task when it came to handling Boston’s immediate pressure to begin the third period, stopping a Zacha one-timer and making a glove save on Jake DeBrusk within the opening three minutes.
Boston didn’t draw its first power play until the 12:03 mark of the third, and Zacha took advantage 41 seconds in when he potted the rebound of a Kevin Shattenkirk point shot with a backhander at the right crease.
Forsberg made multiple key saves during a late four-on-four, including robbing Charlie McAvoy on a point-blank shot after DeBrusk’s feed to the back post with 4:36 left.
The Senators netminder also backed a penalty kill in the final four minutes, which resulted in Zub’s short-handed empty-netter with 1:48 to go off a David Pastrnak turnover.
–Field Level Media
