Sauer's 1st NHL goal leads Rangers over Senators

OTTAWA – Michael Sauer scored his first NHL goal on a power play with 5:19 left to break a tie, and the New York Rangers went on to beat the Ottawa Senators 5-3 on Thursday night.

The defenseman took a cross-ice pass from Brandon Prust and drove a slap shot past goalie Brian Elliott to give New York its first lead. Erik Christensen drew the Rangers even for the third time earlier in the period. Brandon Dubinsky scored into an empty net with 51.9 seconds remaining.

Derek Stepan and Ruslan Fedotenko also scored for New York, which replied quickly after each of Ottawa's first two goals.

Henrik Lundqvist stopped 24 shots for the Rangers, who have won seven of 10 despite a 3-1 loss to the Senators on Sunday in the first half of the home-and-home series.

Mike Fisher scored twice, Jason Spezza added a goal, and Elliott made 23 saves for the Senators, who have lost 10 of 13 (3-9-1).

Ottawa has been outscored 39-19 in the third period.

Christensen netted his fifth goal 3:30 into the third when his shot from the left corner somehow got past Elliott, who was hugging the right post.

Lundqvist made a sparkling glove save off Nick Foligno on Ottawa's first shot of the game, after Michal Rozsival was penalized for high-sticking Senators captain Daniel Alfredsson 1:33 in, but Foligno passed the rebound to Fisher, who fired in his eighth goal.

Stepan tied it 1:46 later with his seventh goal.

Spezza made it 2-1 with Ottawa's second power-play goal 34 seconds into the second period. Fedotenko tied it at 2 with his fifth goal 69 seconds later.

Fisher appeared to make it third goals in 1:34 when he sent a shot past Lundqvist at 2:08, but referee Paul Devorski's call was overturned when a replay showed that Fisher's shot struck the crossbar and bounced onto the ice without crossing the goal line before caroming off the left post.

Fisher's second of the game put Ottawa up 3-2 at 8:47. It was his ninth this season.

NOTES: Rangers D Michael Del Zotto was scratched for the first time this season. Del Zotto has two goals and six assists in 29 games. ... The Senators had scored fewer than two goals in eight of 12 games. ... Ottawa D Matt Carkner got a misconduct added to his roughing major for yapping at the Rangers bench after his fight with Derek Boogaard at 17:29 of the first.