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Heatley, Auld power Senators past Penguins

Oct 5, 2008 - 11:53 PM STOCKHOLM, Sweden (Ticker) -- Dany Heatley continued his impressive run against the Pittsburgh Penguins.

The Ottawa Senators' superstar recorded a goal in his 14th consecutive game against the defending Eastern Conference champions and Alex Auld came within two seconds of a shutout Sunday en route to a 3-1 triumph over the Penguins.

Heatley netted power-play goals midway through the second and third periods and Antoine Vermette also tallied for Ottawa, which salvaged a split of the two-game series at the Globe Arena as part of NHL Premiere 2008.

Swede Daniel Alfredsson had two assists and defenseman Filip Kuba notched two assists for the second consecutive game for the Senators, who were swept by the Penguins in the Eastern Conference quarterfinals last season.

But the night belong to Alfredsson, who had two assists in front of 13,699 of his countrymen. So, was it a perfect night for the Swede?

"Pretty much," said the 35-year-old Alfredsson, who played on the country's 2006 Olympic gold-medal team. "It couldn't have been much better."

To show its appreciation, the crowd chanted Alfredsson's name repeatedly during the final minute of the contest.

"I just tried to soak it all in at the end when were up 3-0," the Senators' captain said. "It was nice that I could look into the crowd and take it all in.

"I'm going to rank this among the highlights of my career. I was very fortunate to have this experience."

Heatley was impressed with the contributions of the entire team.

"For the group, this was a big weekend for us," Heatley said. "We were hungry for these two games. Tonight, we wanted to come out and battle and that's what we did."

"We had no passengers tonight," Ottawa coach Craig Hartsburg said. "We chipped pucks, we didn't turn pucks over and we played hard. Everyone worked hard tonight."

Alex Goligoski scored with two seconds remaining in the third period and Marc-Andre Fleury finished with 24 saves for Pittsburgh.

Playing in place of Martin Gerber, Auld stopped his first 30 shots to keep the high-powered Penguins off the scoresheet.

Gerber struggled in the season-opener, allowing four goals - including Tyler Kennedy's game-winner with 25 seconds remaining in overtime in a 4-3 loss on Saturday. He finished with 26 saves.

Heatley, who also had a goal on Saturday, accepted a centering feed from Spezza and slipped the puck past Fleury to give Ottawa a 1-0 lead with 6:53 remaining in the second period.

He doubled the advantage with 7:43 remaining in the third, and Vermette extended the lead to three just 3 1/2 minutes later.