• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

Kiprusoff, Flames blank Senators

Mar 12, 2010 - 7:02 AM CALGARY, Alberta(AP) -- Miikka Kiprusoff had a lot of help.

Kiprusoff made 33 saves for fourth shutout of the season and 34th overall, and his teammates combined to block 30 more shots in the Calgary Flames' 2-0 victory over the Ottawa Senators on Thursday night.

"Guys are paying the price and that's what you have to do if you want to win games like this," Kiprusoff said. "If you block a shot, there's not going to be a rebound and there's no scoring chance."

Jamal Mayers and Christopher Higgins scored for Calgary. The Flames have won four straight to match seventh-place Nashville with 77 points in the Western Conference playoff race.

Mark Giordano had six blocks, Cory Sarich added five and Jay Bouwmeester four.

"We had some great efforts from guys blocking shots but Kipper deserves a lot of credit for this win," Mayers said "Kipper made some huge saves and kept us in the game when we weren't playing very well."

Ottawa is 1-3-1 in its last five after winning 14 of 16 games.

"It's always a concern when you don't score, of course, but I'm not going to criticize any of our effort," Ottawa coach Cory Clouston said. "We had the chances. We had the opportunities. (Peter) Regin hit a post. (Matt) Cullen hit a post. We had a goal disallowed. Sometimes those things happen."

Mayers opened the scoring at 5:29 of the first.

Curtis Glencross won a race to a loose puck behind the net and slid a pass out front to Mayers, who snapped a shot under the crossbar behind Brian Elliott.

It was the third goal of the season for Mayers and first in 12 games since joining the Flames on Jan. 31 in the trade that sent Dion Phaneuf to Toronto.

Higgins scored at 9:05 of the third, converting a one-timer after a neat cross-ice set up from Ian White. Higgins has two goals in 11 games since the Flames acquired him the New York Rangers on Feb. 1

Elliott made 23 saves for Ottawa, coming off 4-1 victory in Edmonton on Tuesday night.

NOTES: Ottawa was 0 for 5 on the power play, and Calgary was 0 for 3. ... A pane of glass in the Ottawa end shattered during the pregame warmups and difficulties replacing the glass resulted in the start of the game being delayed by 30 minutes.