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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Logan Couture and Joe Pavelski scored goals 30 seconds apart late in the third period to help the Sharks clinch the playoffs in their final home game of the season with a come-from-behind 3-2 victory over the Dallas Stars on Tuesday night.

“There’s a sense of relief, but it can’t be a sense of relaxation,” coach Todd McLellan said. “When we came in, we immediately looked at what happened tonight around the league, and there’s still a chance for home ice. It would be a nice thing to have.”

Raffi Torres also scored for the Sharks, who moved into a tie for fourth place in the West with Los Angeles with two games remaining in the race for home-ice advantage. The Sharks visit the Kings in the season finale Saturday after playing at Phoenix on Wednesday night.

It’s been quite a roller-coaster season for the Sharks, who won their first seven games and lost 17 of the next 23 before going on their current 12-3-1 stretch to save their season.

“It was a crazy year. It’s obviously not over yet,” Couture said. “Just the 48-game schedule, so many games back to back and inconsistency of the seven-game winning streak, the big losing streak and then the stretch we’ve gone on now. It’s been a weird year. Our main goal from day one was to get into the playoffs. We’ve done that now so I guess that’s all that matters going forward.”

Antoine Roussel and Loui Eriksson scored for the Stars, whose playoff hopes were dealt a serious blow. Dallas remains two points behind ninth-place Detroit and three behind eighth-place Columbus in the race for the final playoff spot. The Red Wings have a game in hand over both teams.

The Stars end the season with home games against Columbus and Detroit, and need to win both and get help to make the playoffs for the first time since 2008.

“It’s very disappointing,” defenseman Stephane Robidas said. “We battled hard all night. Since the deadline, everyone had written us off, and here we are. I think everyone has shown a lot of character. We needed a point tonight but couldn’t get it. It’s very disappointing.”

Dallas looked as though it would gain two points behind a strong night from Kari Lehtonen but it was all erased in a flash late in the third period.

First, Pavelski tipped Brad Stuart’s point shot in with 5:37 remaining to tie the game.

While the sellout crowd was still celebrating that goal, Justin Braun’s point shot went to Patrick Marleau, who slid the puck to an open Couture, who knocked in his 20th goal of the season.

“Basically a full game of frustration turned into happiness with the go-ahead one there,” Couture said.

Lehtonen made 34 saves but had no chance on Couture’s game winner with 5:07 remaining.

“They had been pressing, and we had had good goaltending the whole game and we just couldn’t hold them at the end when we needed to,” coach Glen Gulutzan said. “We need help now. So we are going to have to bounce back, and we need help. We have to get two more wins.”

Antti Niemi made 24 saves in his 24th straight start for San Jose.

The teams traded goals in the first period with the Sharks striking first. Torres tipped in a centering pass from Scott Gomez for a power-play goal, and the Stars answered when Roussel beat Scott Hannan to a long rebound of a shot by Cody Eakin.

Dallas had chances to take the lead when Stuart was sent to the box for interference with 1:21 remaining on an elbowing penalty against Hannan. The best chance on that 5-on-3 came when San Jose’s Braun was stopped on a partial breakaway by Lehtonen.

Shortly after that two-man advantage ended, Marc-Edouard Vlasic was called for slashing at the end of the first period, giving Dallas 28 seconds more of 5-on-3 play to start the second.

The Stars didn’t squander that chance when Eriksson knocked in a rebound 17 seconds into the period to make it 2-1.

Lehtonen protected that lead the rest of the period, making tough stops on Vlasic, Dan Boyle and Andrew Desjardins to keep Dallas ahead heading into the third.

Game notes

Stars F Alex Chiasson, who scored three goals in two wins over San Jose earlier this month, sat out with a shoulder injury. … San Jose D Jason Demers missed his second straight game because of a lower-body injury. … The Sharks sold out every regular-season game for the third straight season.

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Al Jefferson had 22 points and eight rebounds to help Utah keep its playoff hopes alive with a 96-80 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Monday night, setting up one more must-win game in the season finale on Wednesday.

“It comes down to one game now,” Jefferson said. “It’s a big game. The only thing we can worry about is what we can control, going out there and trying to take care of the game, and trying to win, and just leave the rest up to the Lakers, I guess.”

Mo Williams had 15 points and seven assists for the Jazz, who needed a win to avoid being eliminated in the Western Conference playoff race.

To get into the playoffs, the Jazz need to win at Memphis on Wednesday and for the Los Angeles Lakers to lose at home against Houston that night. Utah owns the tiebreaker after beating the Lakers two out of three times this season.

“I guess I have to try and get in touch with Kevin McHale and tell him to handle it for me,” said Jefferson, who played for the Rockets’ coach when both were in Minnesota.

Derrick Williams had 18 points and six rebounds for the Timberwolves, who were missing center Nikola Pekovic because of a bruised left calf.

The Jazz entered the night clinging to the postseason picture, down 1½ games to the Lakers with two to play.

For a team that could have as many as nine expiring contracts this summer, the Jazz are desperately chasing one more playoff appearance. Jefferson, Paul Millsap, Mo Williams and Randy Foye all could be looking for new teams when the season ends, with a bevy of young players waiting to assume larger roles next year.

They’ve won nine of their last 11 games since a four-game losing streak in the middle of last month threatened to bury them.

“Talk about this group of guys, man, the character that they have, there was no quit in this group,” coach Tyrone Corbin said. “The guys just continued to work and put ourselves in a position to get back when we were struggling there.”

Utah didn’t play all that well early, but it was just good enough to stay on top of a Timberwolves team that is slogging to the finish of another long season. The Wolves shot just 33 percent in the first quarter, and without Pekovic patrolling the paint they didn’t grab an offensive rebound until late in the third quarter.

A 13-4 run by Minnesota cut Utah’s lead to three points late in the third quarter, but once again the Wolves had no answer for Jefferson. The former Wolf scored 40 against the Wolves in a 107-100 win on Friday night in Salt Lake City and continued to attack the team’s soft middle on Monday night. He scored six straight points after Minnesota’s run to give the Jazz some breathing room again, and they never looked back.

Foye scored 14 points for the Jazz.

“You want to finish up better than that,” coach Rick Adelman said of the home finale. “I know they had something to play for, but it was our last home game. I thought we should have had better effort, but we didn’t.”

The Timberwolves have one game left in what has been a miserable, injury-plagued season. They will enter this offseason as they have every one since 2004 — with a spot in the lottery coming in June and plenty of questions about the roster and who will be back to lead it. Owner Glen Taylor has been mum on president David Kahn’s future. Kahn has a team option on his contract for next season.

Coach Rick Adelman has two years left on his deal, but has considered stepping down to help his wife, Mary Kay, who is being treated for seizures. Her condition caused him to miss 11 games earlier this season. She is due to meet with doctors again shortly after the season ends and Adelman is hoping her condition will continue to stabilize. Before the game, Adelman said he was going forward with the idea that he would be back next season and hoped to have a definitive answer in the next couple of weeks.

“I think what happens with Mary Kay or any of that, that certainly would turn things in a different direction,” Adelman said. “Right now I don’t see that (happening), but I’m going to wait and see until we talk to the doctors and see what direction they’ve decided we need to go at this point. Then we’ll move from there.”

Game notes

Wolves PG Ricky Rubio had a quiet night with six points on 2-for-9 shooting and four assists. … The Wolves finish the season with a game at San Antonio on Wednesday. … It was just the 13th win on the road for the Jazz this season. They’ve won three straight away from home.

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