Senators 1 - 3 Bruins
Final
  for this game

Bruins topple Ottawa to wrap up home slate

Apr 10, 2011 - 2:00 AM Boston, MA (Sports Network) - Tim Thomas made 31 saves, backstopping the Bruins to a 3-1 win over the Ottawa Senators in Boston's regular-season home finale.

Nathan Horton, Rich Peverley and Daniel Paille scored for Boston, which will conclude the regular season on Sunday in New Jersey. The Bruins will enter the playoffs as the No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference and will face Montreal in the first round.

"(The Senators) wanted to leave a good impression in their last game. We knew it wasn't going to be an easy game," said Boston head coach Claude Julien.

The Northeast Division champions will open the postseason on home ice, where they posted a 22-13-6 record in 2010-11.

Bobby Butler provided the lone goal for the Senators (32-40-10), who got 26 saves from Curtis McElhinney. Ottawa, which will miss the playoffs for the second time in three seasons, finished with 74 points, its lowest total since 1995-96 campaign.

Not surprisingly, Senators general manager Bryan Murray announced later Saturday that head coach Cory Clouston and assistant coaches Greg Carvel and Brad Lauer were fired.

The 41-year-old Clouston took over behind Ottawa's bench on February 2, 2009 and the Senators were 95-83-20 in his two-plus seasons.

Boston and Ottawa traded goals in the first period.

Shawn Thornton skated down the right wing and fired a shot on goal that McElhinney turned aside. Gregory Campbell tracked down the rebound and dished to Paille for an easy tap-in at 12:53.

Butler countered for the Senators with 1:33 remaining. Thomas made a save on Butler's shot from the slot, but the Massachusetts native pumped home his own rebound.

Horton put the Bruins up 2-1, scoring just seconds after Ottawa's Ryan Shannon went off for high-sticking. On the power play, Horton collected a rebound of a Zdeno Chara shot and backhanded the puck past McElhinney 68 seconds into the middle stanza.

Thomas made 13 saves over the final 20 minutes, including consecutive stops on Erik Condra midway through the frame.

Peverley capped the scoring with 5:08 to play.

Game Notes

Boston forward Mark Recchi played in his 1,652nd NHL game Saturday, passing Chris Chelios for fourth place on the all-time list...The Bruins outscored Ottawa 18-5 while winning five of the six meetings this season.






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