Red-Hot Senators Burn Red Wings

KANATA, Ontario--The Ottawa Senators are done playing the Detroit Red Wings this year, unless the two teams meet in the Stanley Cup finals.

And for once, as far as Ottawa is concerned, it's a bad thing.

The Senators defeated the Red Wings for the second time in five days, beating the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions 4-1 yesterday in front of a sellout crowd of 18,500 at the Corel Centre.

It's the first time Ottawa has beaten Detroit at home since March 24, 1994, and the first time the 7-year-old Senators have swept their two-game series from the Red Wings.

"It's team schizophrenia," Detroit forward Darren McCarty said of the Wings, 3-6-1 in their last 10 games.

With the win, Ottawa (21-13-5) extended its unbeaten streak to eight games (6-0-2) and moved eight games above .500 for the first time in franchise history.

Andreas Dackell, Magnus Arvedson, Daniel Alfredsson and Alexei Yashin scored for Ottawa.

Steve Yzerman scored Detroit's only goal.

Ottawa's Ron Tugnutt stopped 20 shots, lowering his league-leading goals-against average to 1.73. He has given up one goal or less in 11 of his '17 starts this season.

Dackell opened the scoring at 3:37, beating Detroit's Chris Osgood with a wrist shot from the right face-off circle. Wings defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom lost the puck at the Detroit blue line to Dackell, who skated into the Detroit zone and scored his 10th goal of the season.

It was the 28th time in 39 games that Ottawa has scored first, stretching their record to 19-5-4 when that happens.

"We wanted to get them on their heels," Alfredsson said. "We didn't want to give them anything. We wanted to set the tone and we had a great first shift."

Arvedson made it 2-0 just over three minutes later when his shot hit the post on a breakaway, but the puck caromed in off Osgood.

Yzerman made it 2-1 with a power-play goal 16:25 into the second period, banging home a rebound off a Larry Murphy shot.

"I'm disappointed we got beat rather handily," said Yzerman. "It's been going on for quite a while now. At the beginning of the year, we could shrug it off - a loss here, a loss there - but now they're starting to pile up and it's starting to become a concern."

The Red Wings defense gave up another goal in the second period. Mathieu Dandenault made a poor cross-ice pass that Vaclav Prospal intercepted and fed to Alfredsson, whose shot hit the post, then banged off Osgood and into the net.

Yashin, who extended his consecutive point streak to eight games, finished the scoring with a power-play goal, his 17th, midway in the third period.