Maple Leafs end season with win

David Shoalts

TORONTO Globe and Mail Update

Boyd Devereaux and Martin Gerber may have played their last games with the Toronto Maple Leafs and if so, they both went out in style.

Devereaux scored three goals for his first hat trick as a Leaf and Gerber was solid in goal in his first start against his former team as the Leafs beat the Ottawa Senators 5-2 on Saturday night in the NHL regular-season finale for both teams.

"It was definitely a long time ago that three went in for me," said Devereaux, 30, who was playing in just his 23rd game this season after being called up from the Leafs' farm team in February. He was originally signed as a free agent in October, 2006 but was only a full-time Leaf in the 2007-08 season.

"It felt great to go into the off-season on a positive note," said Devereaux, who will become a free agent on July 1 with no guarantee of a contract offer from the Leafs. "When I got called up, I just told myself to work as hard as I could to earn myself a contract.

"You never know but hopefully this goes a little way toward that."

Gerber was much sharper in goal than the fellow who replaced him in Ottawa, Brian Elliott. He made 37 saves, although he had to survive a couple of miscues behind his net to get the win.

Like Devereaux, Gerber also becomes a free agent on July 1 and there are also no guarantees for him, either. Gerber has said he would like to remain a Maple Leaf, but it will only come if he takes a steep pay cut from his $3.7-million (U.S.) salary, since Vesa Toskala is expected to remain the No. 1 goaltender.

"I try not to think about it too much," said Gerber, who was demoted by the Senators to the minor leagues earlier this season and then picked up on waivers by the Leafs a month ago. "No matter what you say, the first time you play against your old team, you're anxious to play well."

In keeping with their respective seasons, neither the Leafs nor the Senators put on a dazzling display of hockey at the Air Canada Centre.

The win allowed the Leafs to finish with a 34-35-13 record and 81 points and a 12th-place finish in the NHL's Eastern Conference, two points behind the 36-25-11 Senators.

Devereaux, hardly one of the Leafs' scoring threats during the season, doubled his goals total for the season from three to six, although Elliott was less than sharp on his first two.

Almost five minutes after Devereaux scored his second goal to put the Leafs ahead 2-0 in the second period, Gerber went behind his net during an Ottawa power play to retrieve the puck. However, the goaltender whiffed on his clearing attempt and Senators centre Jason Spezza stole the puck and scored his 32nd goal of the season on a wraparound shot.

A few minutes later, at 11:42, Gerber tried the same thing again. This time, he got some wood on the puck and sent it to Leafs defenceman Ian White. But White failed to take the pass cleanly and Ottawa centre Chris Kelly stole the puck, went to the net and scored while Gerber was still stuck by the end boards to tie the score 2-2.

Devereaux, 30, nailed down the second hat trick of his NHL career and first as a Maple Leaf when he roared in on Elliott on a breakaway. He slid the puck to his backhand and lifted a shot to the top corner as Elliott stood still.

By then, Niklas Hagman had restored the Leafs' lead with his 21st goal early in the third period. Hagman added an empty-net goal at 19:16.

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