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Bell, potent power play help Senators upend Capitals

Jan 21, 2009 - 5:09 AM OTTAWA (Ticker) -- The Ottawa Senators' power play provided quite the punch on Tuesday.

Defenseman Brendan Bell scored a power-play goal with 82 seconds remaining in the third period and All-Star Dany Heatley added a pair of tallies with the man advantage as the Senators recorded a 3-2 triumph over the Washington Capitals.

Antoine Vermette notched three assists and rookie Brian Elliott turned aside 29 shots for Ottawa, which improved to 3-0-1 in its last four contests.

"It doesn't really matter to any of us," Vermette said of his three-assist performance. "What matters is the two points. This is what we have to continue to do if we want to be where we want at the end of the season. Points in the standings is what we really want."

"We had a slow second period, but we bounced back a bit in the third," Elliott said. "Getting that goal from Brendan really helps a lot going into the break. The guys have been playing great the last five games. Whatever the spark has been, we'll take it. ... It's fun to be winning those games."

Sergei Fedorov and David Steckel scored over nine minutes apart in the second period and Jose Theodore made 31 saves for Washington, which saw its three-game winning streak come to an end.

"It was stupid, it was ridiculous. We didn't come to play in the first and third periods," Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau said. "When you don't come to play in two out of three periods, you're not going to win the hockey game."

With the game tied at 2-2 late in the third, Bell unleashed a shot from the right faceoff circle that hit the left leg of blue-liner Karl Alzner. Bell gathered the loose puck and immediately wristed it just inside the right goalpost for his fourth goal of the season.

"I saw Antoine was wide open, so I passed it to him, but he put it right back on my tape," Bell said. "I took a shot, and then it was a fortunate bounce to have it end right back on my stick."

"It's no fault of Jose," Boudreau said. "I think he was reacting to the first shot by following it in, but then it deflected back to Bell, and unfortunately, it went in."

Heatley opened the scoring 8:11 into the first period, receiving a pass from defenseman Filip Kuba and blasting a shot from the right faceoff circle past Theodore.

One day prior to his 28th birthday, Heatley doubled the advantage with 4:06 remaining in the session.

After collecting the puck in the right circle, Heatley wristed a shot that caromed off the left skate of defenseman Jeff Schultz and past Theodore for his team-leading 21st goal of the season.

"It's always nice to score goals when you're a goal-scorer," Heatley said. "Sometimes they go in and sometimes they don't. Last week, a couple have gone in."

Ottawa finished 3-for-6 with the man advantage, much to the chagrin of Boudreau.

"We only took (six) penalties, but let in (goals on) three of the (six)," Boudreau said. "If we don't get better (on the penalty kill), we're not going anywhere. Guys are going to start losing their penalty ice-time if they don't start getting with the program.

"That's three games in a row now we've had poor penalties in the third. If we don't do that, we probably win."

Facing a two-goal deficit, Washington responded by outshooting Ottawa, 19-3, in the second period.

Fedorov got the Capitals on the scoreboard just 37 seconds into the session, when his blast from the high slot beat Elliott for his fifth goal of the campaign and 477th career.

Washington evened the contest at 9:58. Two quick passes after the Senators lost possession in their own zone, Steckel tapped the puck past Elliott for his sixth tally.

"We had a good second period, but the rest of the game, we just played defense," reigning Hart Trophy winner Alex Ovechkin said. "We didn't have as many quality shots as we wanted. (Ottawa) played great on the power play.

"We just stopped playing in the third period. We didn't get the puck out of our zone and we didn't seem to play very hard. We just waited for something to happen instead of creating. ... We can't play like this and expect to win."