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Bell scores a pair as Senators veto Sabres

Mar 18, 2009 - 3:34 AM OTTAWA (AP) -- The Buffalo Sabres are three points from playoff position. If they miss the playoffs by a similar margin, they'll be bound to look back at their five losses to Ottawa.

Especially their latest.

Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff said he was "embarrassed" after the Ottawa Senators took advantage of an undisciplined Buffalo Sabres team, scoring three goals in nine chances in a 4-2 victory Tuesday night.

The win gave Ottawa the season series by a 5-1 margin.

"I'm very embarrassed. Embarrassed for our fans, embarrassed for how we played the last forty minutes," Ruff said. "It's not acceptable this time of year

Brendan Bell scored twice and Filip Kuba had three assists for the Senators, giving him 31 on the season.

The Senators dominated play despite going down 2-0 after the first period. They outshot the Sabres 36-13, including 13-1 in the second period and 13-6 in the first.

"I thought we outshot them pretty good in the first period (13-6)," Senators forward Dany Heatley said. "A couple bad breaks, a couple mistakes that they scored on. Other than that I think we played a real solid game, and the shots were a pretty good indication of that.

The Sabres opened the scoring 4:02 into the game with Toni Lydman blasting in a shot from the top of the circle to the left of Senators goaltender Brian Elliot.

Jason Pominville gave Buffalo a 2-0 lead later in the period and the Sabres ended the first period with two goals on six shots.

Dany Heatley got the Senators going with his 33rd goal just 1:30 into the second period. Ottawa tied it on a power play when Bell put a cross-ice pass from Daniel Alfredsson past Mikael Tellqvist.

It was the only power-play goal the Senators managed on five tries compared to Buffalo having none in that span.

Buffalo's penalty problems continued into the third period when Drew Stafford's elbow to Heatley's face put the Senators on the power play once again. This time they made it count, with Jason Spezza saucering a pass across to Alfredsson, who tapped it past a sprawling Tellqvist.

The Buffalo parade to the penalty box continued, and with Paul Gaustad in the box for high-sticking, Bell picked up his second power-play goal of the night. Bell scored with a scorching blast from just inside the blue line that beat Tellqvist cleanly to the glove side.

"Today we had a lot of power plays and we had a lot of opportunities to make good plays," Kuba said. "The puck was just going in for us today."