Ottawa Senators getting healthier and meaner in 3-2 win over Carolina Hurricanes

OTTAWA - Craig Anderson made 32 saves to lead Ottawa to its third straight win, a 3-1 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes after a day of difficult travel for the Senators.

Mika Zibanejad, Cory Conacher and Chris Neil all scored for Ottawa (22-14-6), allowing the Senators to remain alone in sixth spot in the Eastern Conference.

Justin Faulk and Eric Staal replied for the Hurricanes (17-23-2), who got 31 saves from Justin Peters.

The Senators had Monday's game with the Bruins postponed after the terrorist attack at the Boston Marathon. That forced Ottawa back home through tightened security measures.

Senators defenceman Jared Cowen played his first game since undergoing hip surgery in November that was expected to end his season.

He laid out Carolina forward Jeff Skinner with a clean hit at centre ice 13 minutes into the game. Cowen immediately fought Chad LaRose who came to the defence of Skinner and took 17 minutes of penalties in the process.

Skinner did not return to the game.

Cowen then fought Kevin Westgarth in the second period after Westgarth drew an initial roughing penalty.

Ottawa had its best opportunities in the opening period and those chances came early. Kyle Turris and Conacher each had partial breakaways in the opening minutes of the game but were unable to convert.

Jean-Gabriel Pageau, playing just his third career game and first in Ottawa, broke down the right side of the ice in cut in front of the Carolina goal but was stopped by Peters.

Later in the period Peters got his glove on a shot from Sergei Gonchar while the Senators enjoyed their first power play of the game.

A scoreless tie was broken at 17:22 of the first period when Zibanejad converted a pass from Coacher who swung around the net and fed Zibanejad in front.

The Senators increased their lead six minutes into the second period on Michalek’s snap shot that beat Peters on the far side.

The lead was back to one however, exactly four minutes later as Anderson got some, but not enough, of Faulk’s shot from the slot.

After some pressure from the Hurricanes the Senators broke out on a two-on-one that ended with Neil redirecting a pass from Guillaume Latendresse past Peters at the edge of the Carolina crease at 17:12.

Staal scored a late power-play goal but the Hurricanes were unable to rally any further.

Notes: As the Ottawa senators get healthy, the list of healthy scratches gets longer. Scratched from Tuesday's game were Jim O'Brien, Matt Kassian, Mike Lundin, Peter Regin and Andre Benoit…Out for the Hurricanes was Drayson Bowman, Joni Pitkanen, Tim Wallace and Tim Brent … Tuesday was Peter Regin's 27th birthday…Senator’s forward Kyle Turris remains one point shy of 100 for his career…Hurricane's defenceman Joe Corvo is one point away from 300 in his career … Ottawa has a 7-5-1 record against the Southeast Division this season while the Hurricanes are 8-7-0 against the Northeast … Carolina and Ottawa were ranked 1-2 in the NHL in shots per game heading into Tuesday with 32.8 and 32.4 respectively