Kyle Turris and Bobby Ryan scored in the shootout as the Senators beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 2-1 in the NHL on Thursday night. They appear to have lost defenseman Marc Methot for perhaps an extended period of time, though, after he was slashed by the stick of Sidney Crosby in the first period.

Ottawa played the final 45 minutes without Methot, who left the game with a bloodied and mangled finger on his left hand following a two-handed slash from Crosby. Crosby didn’t receive a penalty on the play.

Methot grabbed Crosby by the jersey after the whistle and had a few words for the Penguins’ captain before leaving the ice.

”His finger is destroyed. It’s shattered and he’s out for weeks,” Senators coach Guy Boucher said.

Ottawa captain Erik Karlsson said it was an unfortunate play, but a play that happens all the time. This one just went bad.

”(Crosby) puts his stick in as (Methot) is trying to shoot the puck in and unfortunately it hits his finger,” Karlsson said. ”It turns out worse than most other times, plays like that happen all the time, but I don’t think it was intentional or dirty.”

Crosby echoed those sentiments saying he wasn’t looking to injure Methot.

”I was just trying to get his stick and I think I caught his finger judging by his reaction and their reaction. I’ve gotten those before. They don’t feel good.”

Mike Hoffman scored in regulation for the Senators and Mike Condon finished with 34 saves, including two incredible point-blank stops in overtime to keep the game going.

”I was lucky to get it on the blocker there and thankfully it went over the net,” Condon said of his overtime save on Chris Kunitz.

Nick Bonino had the goal in regulation for the Penguins and Matt Murray stopped 29 shots.

After being outplayed for much of the first two periods, the Senators were much better in the third and tied the score 1-1 on the power play at 9:43 as Hoffman beat Murray over the shoulder with a wrist shot just 14 seconds after Matt Cullen was penalized for holding.

”I couldn’t really see it until late and by that time, he’s got such a good shot it was already too late for me to react to it. But I’ve got to have that short side, so that’s probably on me,” Murray said.

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“I’m not talking about anything ahead of Game 5,” the Pittsburgh captain said when asked about a potential Eastern Conference final against the Boston Bruins.

But after the Penguins’ 7-3 victory Wednesday night, it’s hard to imagine Crosby and his teammates aren’t starting to think about facing the Bruins, who are up 3-0 over the New York Rangers.

Jarome Iginla and James Neal each scored twice, Crosby, Chris Kunitz and Pascal Dupuis added goals, and Tomas Vokoun made 30 saves. Down 2-1 after the first period, the Penguins scored twice in a 40-second span early in the second and added four goals in the first 10 minutes of the third.

Milan Michalek, Kyle Turris and Daniel Alfredsson scored for Ottawa. Senators goalie Craig Anderson was benched after Pittsburgh’s sixth goal, and Robin Lehner finished the game.

“There was a sense like, ‘OK, this might take as many shots as we can muster to break this guy.’ And fortunately, we kept on that mindset,” Penguins coach Dan Bylsma said. “It was a matter of, ‘We are going to have to fire anything and everything we can at this guy to get one by him.'”

Game 5 is Friday night in Pittsburgh.

“I know what we’re going to do,” Alfredsson said. “We’re going to go out and play one hell of a game. That doesn’t worry me at all. We never quit and that’s not going to stop now. We know the odds are against us in every way, but we never quit and that’s going to continue.”

But Alfredsson also conceded that the Senators faced long odds of rallying against the top-seeded Penguins.

“Probably not,” Alfredsson said, according to NHL.com. “[Pittsburgh’s] depth and our play right now … it doesn’t look too good.

“When you look at what we did, it wasn’t good enough. Does that mean [Pittsburgh] was good? Did we make them good? Who really cares? From our point of view, we didn’t manage the puck [well], we didn’t execute our passes, and subsequently, we got punished in the neutral zone. We turned way too many pucks over and gave them some freebies. It would have been nice to have the lead for a little bit longer, but now we’re back on our heels again. We didn’t shut them down when it matters.”

The 40-year-old captain was seen retrieving the puck at the end of the game, NHL.com reported, but Alfredsson insisted that the puck was a memento for his family and not a sign that he was considering retirement at season’s end.

Senators coach Paul MacLean didn’t take a single question after the game. Instead, he held up the scoresheet and said: “I think everything’s right here. It’s 7-3. See you in Pittsburgh. We’re going to Pittsburgh and we’re coming to play. Have a good night.”

The Senators, coming off a double-overtime victory Sunday night in Game 3, opened the scoring on Michalek’s short-handed goal at 2:29 of the first period. With defenseman Sergei Gonchar in the penalty box, Alfredsson fed the puck up the middle to a streaking Michalek, who broke through the defense and beat Vokoun low on the glove side for Ottawa’s second short-handed goal of the series.

It was the Senators’ first lead of the series. It wouldn’t last.

Neal tied it with 5:04 left in the period, picking up the loose puck in the slot and putting it in the back of the net. Turris put Ottawa back in front off a rebound with 3:45 left in the first.

Pittsburgh tied it early in the second when Kunitz got behind the defense and went in alone to beat Anderson. Less than a minute later, Anderson gave up a rebound on Kris Letang’s shot that landed on the tape of Iginla’s stick to make it 3-2.

Neal started the third-period flurry with a power-play goal at 1:59. Dupuis added a short-handed goal at 8:07, Crosby followed at 8:39, and Iginla scored on a power play at 9:53.

Alfredsson finished the scoring with a late power-play goal for his 100th career playoff point.

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Or was he just trying to avoid the top-seeded Pittsburgh Penguins?

“We talked about mostly finishing better than last year,” Alfredsson said after the Senators beat Boston 4-2 in the NHL’s rescheduled regular-season finale on Sunday night to earn the No. 7 seed in the Eastern Conference.

“We were eighth last year, so to win here the last game and finish seventh it feels really good. We improved on last year, and that’s what we wanted.”

Jean-Gabriel Pageau scored the tiebreaking goal with 3:34 to play, and Kyle Turris added an empty-netter to help Ottawa win the game that was originally scheduled for April 15, the day of the Boston Marathon bombings.

It was the only NHL game on Sunday, with the rest of the league wrapping up the regular season by Saturday.

The victory pushed the Senators past the New York Islanders and into seventh in the East, helping them avoid the Penguins in the first round.

Ottawa opens the series in Montreal on Thursday.

“I think it will be a great series,” Alfredsson said. “The Bell Centre is one of the most exciting buildings to play in. It’s a great hockey town as well. … I think it’s going to be an unbelievable atmosphere in both arenas, and I’m looking forward to a hard-fought series.”

The Islanders will face Pittsburgh in the first round. The Bruins could have won the Northeast Division and earned a No. 2 seed with a win, but they finished fourth in the East and will play Toronto in the first round starting Wednesday in Boston.

“We wanted to win tonight to clinch the division,” Bruins defenseman Johnny Boychuk said. “Now it doesn’t matter. We have to move forward for the playoffs.”

Boston has not faced the Maple Leafs in the postseason since the first round of the 1974 playoffs. It is the only matchup of Original Six teams in the first round.

“You want to get the No. 2 spot, but at the end it doesn’t matter,” said defenseman Dennis Seidenberg, who scored just 14 seconds into the third period to tie it 2-all.

“We still have home ice advantage in the first round, and the first round is always the toughest one to get out of. Everything else doesn’t matter now.”

Robin Lehner stopped 34 shots for the Senators, who had not beaten Boston in their previous 14 tries.

Tuukka Rask made 18 saves for Boston, which had won two straight division titles. He was pulled with about a minute left, but the Bruins couldn’t muster any pressure before Turris’ empty-netter with 37 seconds to play.

Pageau also assisted on Erik Condra’s goal that made it 1-0 with 3 minutes left in the first period. Jared Cowen scored midway through the second to give Ottawa a 2-0 lead.

But the Bruins scored twice in 18 seconds of clock time — on Rich Peverley’s goal with 3.4 seconds left in the second period and again on Seidenberg’s goal 14 seconds into the third.

It was still tied when Pageau swept a rebound past Rask to give the Senators a 3-2 lead. The Bruins couldn’t manage any pressure with Rask pulled for the final minute, and Ottawa clinched on Turris’ empty-netter.

Game notes

The Bruins handed out their regular-season awards before the game: Patrice Bergeron was the recipient of the Eddie Shore Award for hustle and determination and the Elizabeth Dufresne Trophy for outstanding performance during home games. Gregory Campbell earned the John P. Bucyk Award for off-ice charitable contributions, and the three stars went to Rask (first), Bergeron (second) and Tyler Seguin (third). … The rescheduled game almost had to be bumped back when the Celtics’ 1 p.m. game went into overtime. But the Bull Gang got the basketball floor off the ice in time for the 7 p.m. start. … All four Northeast Division teams to make the playoffs are facing each other. … The Senators have never faced Montreal in the playoffs since joining the NHL in 1992.

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Turris scored twice, including the winning goal 3:54 into overtime, and added an assist to help the Senators overcome an early two-goal deficit and beat the unraveling Buffalo Sabres 4-3 on Saturday.

“I don’t know what it was, but my legs didn’t feel the best in the first period,” Turris said, before noting how the massage and injection of caffeine provided him a boost during the first intermission. “I felt much better in the second and much better in the third. I don’t know why, but it happens like that sometimes.”

Turris capped the Senators’ three-goal second period by scoring on a wraparound goal with 63 seconds left. After Buffalo’s Drew Stafford tied it at 3 with 7:54 left in regulation, Turris sealed the win with a power-play goal in overtime.

With Christian Ehrhoff off for interference, Daniel Alfredsson fed Turris in the lower left circle, where he one-timed a shot over goalie Ryan Miller’s shoulder on the short side.

Patrick Wiercioch had a goal and assist, and Chris Phillips also scored for Ottawa, which won for only the second time in eight games (2-2-4). Ben Bishop made 33 saves in his first start in four games. The Senators also extended their string of games decided by one goal to 11, one short of matching the NHL record set by Chicago during the 1997-98 season.

Stafford scored twice, and Mike Weber added a goal for Buffalo, which dropped to 1-2-3 in its past six games.

While the Senators celebrated their ability to bounce back after a sloppy first period, the Sabres lamented yet another inconsistent outing.

“I thought the first (period) was probably one of our best periods of the year, and the second was probably one of our worst,” Sabres interim coach Ron Rolston said. “We must have just got comfortable.”

The Sabres (10-14-4) can’t afford to get comfortable given how coach Lindy Ruff was fired a month ago.

Their fans continued to express their displeasure of a high-priced team that opened the season with high expectations. An hour after the game, one fan was heard inside the near-empty arena yelling, “Darcy’s got to go!” in reference to Sabres general manager Darcy Regier.

“It’s disappointing,” Sabres captain Jason Pominville said. “We just can’t get one point. We have to be able to get two points. We had a two-goal lead, and it just wasn’t good enough.”

That two-goal lead Buffalo enjoyed was its largest entering a second period in 32 games, dating to March 27 of last season. And the Sabres promptly squandered it.

Ottawa scored twice in the first 10:14, during a stretch in which it outshot Buffalo 12-2. Turris then gave the Senators their first lead by avoiding Jochen Hecht’s weak stick check attempt and banking the puck in off Miller’s skate.

Senators coach Paul MacLean was impressed by how his team rallied.

“That’s what we had to do — respond,” MacLean said. “Down 2-0 on the road, the next goal is huge. And I thought we came out and established our game finally and put some pressure on their goaltender.”

The Senators took full advantage of the flat-footed Sabres less than two minutes into the second period. During a 10-second span, Miller was forced to stop four shots — two by Jakob Silfverberg and two by Peter Regin — from in close. They all came after defenseman Robyn Regehr’s lazy giveaway inside his blue line.

Miller finished with 30 saves, including foiling Guillaume Latendresse, who was set up on the doorstep shortly before Turris scored in overtime.

Bishop was sharp, too. His best save came with 2:27 left in regulation during a Sabres power play. That is when he got his right pad out just in time to stop Thomas Vanek’s one-timer.

He had no chance on Stafford’s second goal, which deflected in off Senators forward Zack Smith’s stick in front.

“It’s going to happen sometimes,” Bishop said. “We responded well, so, no big deal.”

Game notes

Sabres LW Ville Leino had an assist in his season debut. He missed the first 27 games with a hip injury. … Senators D Sergei Gonchar had two assists to extend his point streak to six games. … Sabres RW Patrick Kaleta completed his five-game NHL suspension for an illegal hit, and is available to return to play at Washington on Sunday. … Senators LW Matt Kassian made his NHL season debut after being acquired in a trade with Minnesota on March 12. Kassian had been playing with Houston of the AHL.

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