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Senators post rare preseason win over Canadiens behind Meszaros

Sep 29, 2006 - 2:13 AM OTTAWA (Ticker) -- It's not often the Ottawa Senators get the better of the Montreal Canadiens during the preseason. It's even more rare for Andrei Meszaros to show up in the scoring column more than once.

Meszaros netted a pair of goals and captain Daniel Alfredsson collected three assists as the Senators skated to a 5-2 victory over the Canadiens, just their fourth win in 14 preseason meetings between the teams.

A rookie last season, Meszaros scored 10 goals but did not record a multi-tally performance. The 20-year-old Slovakian found the net twice Thursday, beating goaltender David Aebischer with 73 seconds to go in the first period for a 3-1 lead before cashing in on a power-play chance at 5:43 of the middle session.

Mike Fisher set up Peter Schaefer's tally 8:44 into the game to give Ottawa a 1-0 edge before snapping a tie less than five minutes later with a man-advantage goal.

Tough guy Chris Neil had a goal and an assist for the Senators, who received a 31-save effort from netminder Martin Gerber.

Alexei Kovalev and Tomas Plekanec scored for Montreal, which played without Sergei Samsonov.