Dany Heatley scored his 30th goal of the season Tuesday night and the Ottawa Senators went on to beat the Carolina Hurricanes 4-2.

It's the fifth time in his seven NHL seasons that he's reached the 30-goal mark and fourth year in a row.

Heatley and Chris Kelly scored goals 46 seconds apart in the first period for Ottawa.

Mike Comrie, acquired from the New York Islanders along with defenseman Chris Campoli in a trade last Friday, also scored as the Senators struck three times in the opening 20 minutes to chase Hurricanes goaltender Cam Ward from the game.

Patrick Eaves and Anton Babchuk scored for Carolina, which had its three-game win streak stopped. The Hurricanes remain in ninth in the East, one point behind the Sabres and Panthers.

Jason Spezza also scored for the Senators, who halted a three-game winless slide.

Daniel Alfredsson and Antoine Vermette each chipped in with a pair of assists and Alex Auld recorded 41 saves.

Ward, making his ninth straight start for Carolina, allowed the three first-period goals on nine shots before being replaced by Michael Leighton, who made 12 saves the rest of the way.

The loss put an end to Carolina's road win streak at four games.

Slow starts have caused the Senators problems recently. They fell behind 4-0 to the Montreal Canadiens in their last outing Saturday en route to a 5-3 defeat.

It was a different story on Tuesday. With Comrie, in his second stint in Ottawa, and Campoli making their first appearance at home, the Senators came close on a couple of chances early before Heatley gave them the lead just past the 14-minute mark when he converted a 2-on-1 opportunity with Alfredsson.

That touched off a flurry of goals over the next 46 seconds.

Before Heatley's goal could even be announced, Eaves tied the score when he fired a shot from a bad angle that struck Auld in the side of the pad and bounced in for the former Senators' third goal of the season.

But 29 seconds after that, Vermette forced a turnover as Carolina tried to break out of its own zone. He found Kelly alone in front of the net, who scored his seventh goal of the season.

With 10.1 seconds left in the first, Comrie recorded his eighth goal and first back in an Ottawa uniform when he faked a slapshot and slipped the puck through Ward's pads.

Ward was replaced by Leighton to start the second and Spezza welcomed him by slipping a bad-angle shot past him on the power play to make it 4-1 less than two minutes into the period.

Babchuk cut the lead to 4-2 with the Hurricanes on a power play late in the period.

Notes@: With Senators general manager Bryan Murray stating Monday he has too many bodies available, defensemen Brendan Bell, Christoph Schubert and Alexandre Picard were all healthy scratches. Carolina returns home to play host to the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday in another important Eastern Conference game with playoff implications.

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