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Heatley, Senators edge Maple Leafs

Mar 10, 2009 - 5:18 AM OTTAWA (Ticker) -- All-Star Dany Heatley punctuated a key second-half spurt as the Ottawa Senators edged the Toronto Maple Leafs, 2-1, on Monday.

Captain Daniel Alfredsson also tallied and rookie Brian Elliott made 25 saves to lead the Senators to their third consecutive win.

"They didn't really have much because we kept them to the outside," Elliott said. "That's all you need for the guys, to be aware of everything defensively."

Defenseman Ian White netted the lone goal and Curtis Joseph turned aside 24 shots for Toronto, which has lost two in a row.

"We got off to a quick start and had control of the game," White said. "They came out hard in the second and took it to us. We didn't respond the way we needed to.

"We didn't do the simple things consistently all night. We turned too many pucks over."

White opened the scoring at 4:48 of the first period, taking a pass from Jeff Hamilton and firing a wrist shot from the slot that sailed by Elliott.

"Our players competed like heck," Maple Leafs coach Ron Wilson said. "The two goals they got were kind of on lucky bounces."

However, Ottawa forged a tie with 4:46 remaining in the second, when Alfredsson unleashed a slap shot from the right faceoff circle for his 21st tally of the season. With that goal, Joseph surrendered the 2,500th of his career.

Heatley snapped the deadlock with 47 seconds left in the session by tipping in blue-liner Anton Volchenkov's attempt while stationed in the slot.

Toronto ended the contest on a power play for a stick infraction called on Ottawa's Jason Spezza.

"It's kind of stupid and I didn't expect it to be honest," Spezza said. "We did a good job of battling even though (Joseph) made some good saves, but Elliott was there for us and we played a good team game."

Wilson asked the referees to check Spezza's stick in the final two minutes of play.

"I wanted to give our guys a chance to win at the end," Wilson said. "The guys using a stick that's not only illegal, but dangerous - I had an opportunity to call it and I did."