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Third-period rally leads Senators over Panthers

Oct 31, 2008 - 4:08 AM By Rick Menning PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

SUNRISE, Florida (Ticker) -- Chris Kelly picked an opportune time to score his first goal of the season.

Kelly snapped a tie midway through the third period as the Ottawa Senators rallied for a 2-1 victory over the Florida Panthers on Thursday.

Dany Heatley also scored for Ottawa, which used a pair of goals in the third period to win consecutive games for the first time this season.

"This is the mind set we have to be in. You get behind, but you have to stay the course and keep working," Senators coach Craig Hartsburg said. "This was a good road win against a gritty team."

With the game knotted at 1-1, the Senators took the lead with 9:40 remaining in the third. Kelly found a rebound in front of the net after enforcer Chris Neil came out from behind and tried to stuff the puck past goaltender Tomas Vokoun.

The Czech made the initial save, but Kelly swooped in through traffic to net the go-ahead tally.

"I just happened to be the last one to take a stab at it," Kelly said. "It was just laying there and two or three of us were trying to poke it past (Vokoun), and I managed to finish it off."

Florida, which posted a 3-1 victory in Ottawa just eight days ago, needed only nine seconds of a 5-on-3 advantage to score its only goal with just under six minutes left in the first period.

"We got a nice jump on them, but in this league, you're not going to win many games scoring one goal," Florida coach Peter DeBoer said. "We weren't desperate enough in our forechecking and gave them too many chances."

After defenseman Jason Smith and Shean Donovan were sent to the penalty box just a minute apart, Keith Ballard took a pass from fellow blue-liner Jay Bouwmeester at the top of the right faceoff circle and fired a wrist shot past former Florida netminder Alex Auld at with 5:41 left for a 1-0 lead.

"We actually played a lot better with the lead this game than the one in Ottawa," DeBoer said. "We just broke down at the end. This was a very winnable game."

Getting the start despite Craig Anderson's 41-save performance in the first meeting between the teams, Vokoun made 21 of his 29 saves over the first two periods.

"You have to find a way to complete the effort, and we didn't do that tonight," Vokoun said. "A disappointing loss, for sure."

After failing on its first three power-play opportunities, Ottawa tied the game when it struck with the man advantage at 5:55 of the third.

Heatley wheeled around the back of the net and snuck a wrist shot past Vokoun for his second goal in as many games. Captain Daniel Alfredsson, who signed a four-year contract extension earlier in the day, set up the tally.

"Our power play has been good. We've been able to generate a lot of chances, and in that (third) period, we made the most of it," Alfredsson said. "We were persistent in our approach, and it paid off."

Auld made 25 saves for the Senators.

"It's always nice to win against your former team," said Auld, who improved to 3-2-0 this season. "I was kind of hoping that (1-0) lead wouldn't hold up, and fortunately, we were able to capitalize on our opportunities."