Brind’Amour scores winner, Hurricanes beat Senators 4-1

Hurricanes beat Senators for 2nd straight win

RALEIGH, N.C. — Rod Brind’Amour scored the winning goal, and Cam Ward made 31 saves in the Carolina Hurricanes’ 4-1 victory over the Ottawa Senators on Sunday.

Tom Kostopoulos, Brett Carson and Eric Staal also scored to help Carolina win consecutive games for the first time since early December. On Tuesday night in Toronto, the Hurricanes will attempt to win three in a row for the first time this season.

Chris Kelly scored for Ottawa, and Pascal LeClaire stopped 29 shots. The Senators, opening a five-game trip, have lost four in a row.

Brind’Amour, one of the heroes of Carolina’s Stanley Cup run in 2006, has had a tough season, ranking last in the NHL in plus/minus and going 35 games without a goal. But he scored his second in the last three games, slapping a shot past Leclaire’s outstretched left leg late in the second period.

That was enough for Ward, who started his 12th straight game and has allowed seven goals in his last four games.

Ward’s best saves came in the opening period, when the Senators outshot the Hurricanes 16-5. But Ottawa didn’t get on the scoreboard until early in the second, taking a 1-0 lead when Kelly took a pass from Anton Volchenkov and snapped the puck through Ward’s legs.

Carolina answered 40 seconds later when Brandon Sutter broke up the left boards on a 2-on-1. As he neared the left faceoff circle, Sutter backhanded the puck to Kostopoulos, who dove to smack it past Leclaire for his third goal in four games.

Carson scored his first career NHL goal on a rush late in the third period. Ray Whitney found Carson trailing on the play, and Carson wristed it through a crowd in front of the net.

Staal added another insurance goal, taking another nice pass from Whitney and outwaiting Leclaire before sliding it underneath the goalie.

Both teams were without a number of their top players.

Ottawa’s Milan Michalek missed his second straight game because of an upper-body injury, joining Jason Spezza and Daniel Alfredsson on the sideline.

Carolina’s Tuomo Ruutu sat out because of an upper-body injury sustained in a fight against Colorado’s Darcy Tucker on Friday night. Erik Cole, Sergei Samsonov, Joe Corvo and Scott Walker also missed the game for Carolina.

NOTES: Staal missed Carolina’s previous game while attending his sister-in-law’s funeral. … Both teams were 0 for 2 on the power play.