• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

Senators take opener of home-and-home series with Canadiens

Feb 9, 2007 - 5:58 AM OTTAWA (Ticker) -- With Dany Heatley leading the charge, the Ottawa Senators drew first blood against a division rival.

Heatley scored his team-leading 32nd goal and defenseman Chris Phillips and Peter Schaefer also tallied to lead the Senators to a 4-1 triumph over the Montreal Canadiens.

In taking the opener of the home-and-home series between the Northeast Division clubs, Ottawa raised its record to 14-4-2 since December 21 and gained a split of the first six encounters with Montreal this season. The teams meet at the Bell Centre on Saturday.

"We've played Montreal a lot and we're going to see these guys in a couple of nights," Senators defenseman Wade Redden said. "Things carry over, so you want to make sure you go through the whole 60 minutes and take that to the next game.

"These games are very important. It makes all the difference in the world. We have a lot of hockey left to play before the playoffs. Every game is huge going down the stretch."

Phillips netted his seventh goal of the season at 4:32 of the first period, when his slap shot from the left faceoff circle tipped off All-Star netminder Cristobal Huet's glove and trickled inside the right goalpost.

"After the first period, being up by one goal gave us more confidence," Ottawa captain Daniel Alfredsson said. "We had to shut them down because they had a lot of skill out there."

Heatley doubled the margin to 2-0 with a one-timer off Jason Spezza's setup pass in the slot just 56 seconds into the middle session.

"We have to be a fast and physical team," Heatley said. "I thought we did that tonight. We were skating right from the get-go and we were hitting. That's how we have to play to be successful, especially this time of year. The games are getting tighter."

Schaefer gave the Senators a three-goal bulge on a power play with 3:55 remaining in the second period, redirecting Alfredsson's centering feed from the left corner.

"For us, getting it back together is huge," Heatley said. "Tonight, good things happened. We were skating, the power play was moving the puck well and we got a goal out of it. A few times we had the puck the whole two minutes. Our power play was strong tonight."

"We talked about it this morning and before the game, that we've got to stop taking penalties, especially against a team like Ottawa," Montreal coach Guy Carbonneau said. "Another thing is, we have to start taking shots on net whenever we have an opportunity. We had a lot of good chances tonight, but we didn't capitalize."

Rookie Guillaume Latendresse scored his first goal in seven games and 11th of the season for Montreal on a second-period penalty shot, beating netminder Ray Emery with a shot that found the top left corner of the net.

"It's part of my job to get my nose dirty and try to get something going," Latendresse said. "I was ready for the penalty shot. I knew I wanted to shoot stick side, and it went in. I thought it would get us back into the game."

Spezza added his 21st goal with 91 seconds remaining and Emery made 27 saves for the Senators, who are 7-1-1 in their last nine home games.

Ottawa defenseman Anton Volchenkov recorded his fourth multi-point game of the season with two assists and blocked five shots.

"Anton Volchenkov blocked some big shots for us," Alfredsson said. "If he's not able to block it, then we know Ray (is) going to be there to save it. I go out there to try, and if I get a chance to grab the puck and run with it, I will. It's pretty easy to play with (Mike) Fisher and Schaefer because they're strong on the boards."

Winless since January 20 against Buffalo, Huet stopped 35 shots for Montreal, which slipped to 12-12-3 on the road.

"Every time we seemed to be getting some momentum in the game, we took a penalty," Canadiens left wing Chris Higgins said. "It's the same for all of our games. We've got to stop taking penalties.

"Everyone (has) been saying it all week. We're always two steps behind the play, and that's why we're taking penalties. We put in a pretty solid effort, but if we're chasing the puck on the penalty kill all night, we're not going to score too many goals."