• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

Chara's goal lifts Bruins to upset of Senators

Mar 28, 2007 - 4:45 AM OTTAWA (Ticker) -- Defenseman Zdeno Chara came back to haunt his former team at the worst possible time.

Chara scored the winning goal early in the second period as the Bruins upset the Ottawa Senators, 3-2.

Dany Heatley and Mike Fisher scored for the Senators (45-24-8), who remained five points behind the idle Buffalo Sabres (48-20-7) for first place in the Northeast Division.

Ottawa fell into a fourth-place tie with the Pittsburgh Penguins (44-23-10) in the Eastern Conference. Both clubs have five games remaining and meet April 5 in Ottawa.

The Senators lost for just the second time in eight contests in their first home game following a four-game road trip.

"If we play like we did in the third period for the rest of our games, we'll be alright," Ottawa's Mike Comrie said. "We were a little fatigued after our long road trip, and it may have showed in our play, but no excuses."

Chara netted the winner when he blasted a slap shot from the left point past screened Ottawa goaltender Ray Emery to give the Bruins a 3-2 lead 4:55 into the second period.

"The puck kind of found its way through a bunch of guys," Emery said. "There was a bit of a tip in front and it sort of screwed me up."

"It's a tough part of the season right now, but we still want to perform strong and win as many games as possible of those games we have left," Chara said. "We want to establish a hardworking attitude and we did that tonight. We played hard for 60 minutes."

Chara, who played four seasons in Ottawa, was signed as a free agent by Boston over the summer.

Just 47 seconds earlier, Kalus scored his first career goal when he redirected Mark Mowers' pass in the low slot past Emery to tie the game, 2-2.

"I was in the corner and I just moved out in front of the net," Kalus said. "Mowers gave me a great pass and I just put it in the net."

Patrice Bergeron and rookie Petr Kalus also scored for the Bruins (35-35-6), who climbed within eight points of the eighth and final playoff berth in the East.

Goaltender Joey MacDonald made 32 saves for Boston, which snapped a five-game losing streak in which it scored just four goals. He rebounded after getting pulled in a 5-0 loss at Pittsburgh on Sunday.

"We had a tough time in Pittsburgh and we got outworked there," MacDonald said. "We had a tough day skating, but the guys responded pretty well."

"Joey did his part and I thought the guys competed at a higher level," Boston coach Dave Lewis said.