Flyers beat Senators, finish year on up note

Ottawa, ON -- Steve Mason made a season-high 43 saves to earn his 100th career victory and Jakub Voracek netted the winner midway through the third, as Philadelphia nipped Ottawa, 2-1, at Scotiabank Place.

"You can tell by the last six or seven games we played well. It's just in a couple games here or there that we couldn't put it together so we missed the playoffs," Voracek admitted. "Some teams made a push at the right time and we didn't. Everything was a learning process, in a shortened season. There were so many games we were in third period but couldn't find a way to win. You gotta work every game for every point if you want to make the playoffs."

Jason Akeson added his first NHL goal and Claude Giroux picked up his 200th career assist for the Flyers (23-22-3), who won four in a row and six of their last seven to complete their 2013 schedule.

Kyle Turris registered the lone goal and Craig Anderson stopped 23 shots in the setback for the Senators, who finish their year at Boston on Sunday in a game rescheduled due to the Marathon bombings.

"We want to have a winning atmosphere around here and to do that we need to score more goals," said Anderson. "Right now, that's kind of the way things are going. We're generating chances but not putting them in the back of the net."

Ottawa sits eighth in the Eastern Conference with 54 points. They enter Sunday's game just one point behind the Islanders for seventh.

Voracek snapped the tie with 9:58 left in regulation, capping a 3-on-2 rush with a quick wrister inside the far post from the right circle.

Mason kept up his end of the bargain by robbing Senators forward Milan Michalek with a glove stop from the right post as 5 1/2 minutes remained on the clock.

Anderson wasn't pulled for an extra skater until 46 seconds to play, and the visitors expertly checked away the final moments.

"We played the way we wanted to for the most part," said Sens defenseman Erik Karlsson. "We created a lot of scoring chances, but we just couldn't beat (Mason). He played unbelievable for them."

Akeson lit the lamp on his second career shift, following up a broken play and roofing his shot over Anderson's glove at 3:46. Giroux got the sequence started, intercepting an errant Ottawa clear and pushing the puck on net, where Anderson made the save but couldn't control the rebound.

"It's pretty exciting just to play a game and scoring in it makes it that much more special," said Akeson, who grew up in an Eastern suburb of Canada's capital and played in front of multiple family and friends.

Seconds after an early Sens power play elapsed, Turris whipped home a shot from the right side at 4:35 of the second period.

Notes: Philadelphia took two of three from Ottawa in the season series, the first since winning three of four in 2007-08...The clubs had split the season matchup the previous two seasons...Mason earned a secondary assist on Voracek's game-winning tally, his first point of the 2013 campaign... Mason's previous single-game best in saves was a 39-stop effort in Tuesday's 5-2 win over Boston...Senators defenseman Chris Phillips also recorded his 200th career assist.