OTTAWA (AP) -- Dany Heatley and the Ottawa Senators showed they

can win low-scoring games.

Heatley scored 19 seconds into the second period and the

Senators held on for a 3-2 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers on

Saturday night.

Ottawa, 33-0 when scoring at least four goals, improved to

4-14-5 when getting three or fewer.

"When you win the close games like that it feels real nice,"

Senators defenseman Wade Redden said. "We're aware (of the stats).

It's not like we felt we could never win the close ones.

"A lot of games have been close and we put them away late. We'd

like to keep doing that instead of winning the close ones but it

was a nice win."

Heatley's 34th goal of the season put Ottawa ahead 3-0 before

the Flyers rallied with two goals later in the second to make it

close.

Antoine Vermette and Vaclav Varada had first-period goals for

the Senators, who won for the first time in three games and head

into the Olympic break in first place in the Northeast Division.

Simon Gagne and Donald Brashear scored for Philadelphia, which

remained second in the Atlantic, three points behind the

first-place New York Rangers.

"Other teams were starting to close the gap so we got those big

two points," Heatley said. "Now the guys are going over (to

Turin) and are going to play in the Olympics and the other guys are

going to get a break and we'll get going again after."

Robert Esche started in goal for Philadelphia but was replaced

at 14:07 of the first after giving up two scores, not for his play

but as an attempt by head coach Ken Hitchcock to shake up his team.

Ottawa led 2-0 at the time and had a 13-4 edge in shots.

Antero Niittymaki replaced Esche and was solid, stopping 21 of

22 shots.

"It was a wakeup call," Hitchcock said. "We needed to get

something changed because we were on our heels. It certainly wasn't

a reflection on (Esche), he played fine.

"We needed something to wake it up a bit and Nitty came in and

did a great job for us."

Dominik Hasek had 29 saves for Ottawa.

"Everybody contributed so I think we have to feel good about

ourselves after this win," Hasek said.

On Heatley's goal, Patrick Eaves took the initial shot that

Niittymaki stopped but Heatley was able to convert the rebound.

Vermette opened the scoring 8:58 into the first when he poked

the puck past Esche with defenseman Joni Pitkanen lying on top of

him.

Varada made it 2-0 when he fired a shot past Esche after taking

a one-handed pass from Chris Neil.

Gagne scored his 37th goal of the season at 13:46 of the second

to cut the Flyers' deficit to 3-1 before Brashear registered his

third of the season at 16:52 to make it a one-goal game.Game notes
The Senators improved to 11-1-2 on Saturday nights this

season, including Hasek's 9-0-1 mark. ... The Senators have sold

out their last 19 home dates and have a club-record 25 sellouts in

29 games this season.