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Spezza, Senators turn back Canadiens

Oct 19, 2007 - 3:32 AM OTTAWA (Ticker) -- The Ottawa Senators seem to have all the answers this season.

Just moments after the Montreal Canadiens tied the contest, Jason Spezza responded with the game-winning goal as the Senators came away with a 4-3 victory on Thursday.

Spezza gathered the rebound of Daniel Alfredsson's wrist shot and beat rookie goaltender Carey Price with 6:45 remaining in the third period.

"I've had enough chances over the past few nights, so it's really nice to get one, especially at this time of the game," Spezza said of his first goal of the season. "It was a pretty good game-winner, and I thought we played a pretty good game."

The goal came just 24 seconds after Alexei Kovalev evened the game at 3-3. With netminder Martin Gerber scrambling to find the puck among a crowd of players, Kovalev alertly located it and deposited it into the vacant net for his third goal of the season.

Alfredsson led by example with three assists on Thursday.

With just over seven minutes remaining in the second period, the Senators' captain corralled a loose puck in his own end and fired a cross-ice pass, which caught Dany Heatley in stride. Heatley then wristed it past Price to give the Senators a 3-1 lead.

The goal was Heatley's seventh of the season and 400th career point.

"We were kind of scrambling around and Alfredsson made a good pass and I beat him five-hole," Heatley said.

While Heatley took his goal in stride, 19-year-old Nick Foligno hardly could contain himself after scoring his first National Hockey League goal.

Foligno jubilantly leapt into the air in celebration after his tally in the second period gave the Senators a 2-1 edge.

Defenseman Wade Redden's shot from the blue line deflected off two Montreal defenders and took a fortuitous bounce to Foligno. The rookie circled the net and beat Price to the far side for his first career tally.

"I think it was Chris Neil who asked me what the heck I was doing," Foligno said. "You know, I guess I realized I had an open net after I went behind and I guess I got lucky in time to beat Price. I'm happy I got it like that. Otherwise, the guys wouldn't be too happy with me.

"It feels great to get it, not just because it's my first goal, but because I helped the team win."

While Foligno was understandably happy, Canadiens coach Guy Carbonneau tried to keep the result in perspective.

"Confidence is pretty low at a time like this," Carbonneau said. "We'll review the video tomorrow. We'll regroup. We've got another game this Saturday (against Buffalo).

"We try to learn from every game the things that we need to change. Sure, it's frustrating. But despite the way we played tonight, we were able to capitalize on the few chances they gave us."

With the Canadiens trailing, 3-1, Michael Ryder halved the deficit with a power-play goal with just over five minutes to play in the middle session.

Redden scored 31 seconds into the game, blasting a shot from right faceoff circle between Price's skates as the Senators took a quick 1-0 advantage.

"I'm sure that (Price) would like to have that first one back, but he's young, he's learning and he's just going to get better," Carbonneau said.

Montreal tied the game at 1-1 with a fluky goal.

After the Canadiens dumped the puck into the corner, Guillaume Latendresse corralled it and fired a sharp-angle shot that found its way between Gerber's pads and trickled across the goal line with under three minutes to go in the first.

Gerber stopped 28 shots in posting his league-leading sixth victory of the season.

Price made 29 saves for the Canadiens, who have dropped three straight games.