Lalime, Senators Stymie Devils

The Ottawa Senators already have some impressive victories in the young NHL season and still no blemishes.

For the second straight game, the Senators defeated one of last year's Stanley Cup finalists - this time beating the champion New Jersey Devils 3-1 Friday night.

Shawn McEachern, Ricard Persson and Rob Zamuner scored and Patrick Lalime made 30 saves as the Ottawa Senators remained unbeaten (2-0-1).

"It's early in the season, but it's always good to play well against the Stanley Cup champions," said Senators left wing Rob Zamuner, who scored an empty-net goal with 1:08 remaining. "We have a tough start. Our first five games are against tough teams."

After opening the season with a tie against Boston, the Senators beat Dallas the defending Western Conference champions in their last outing.

"When you look at our schedule, it doesn't get much tougher than that," said McEachern, who scored his first of the season at 14:35 of the first on Alexei Yashin's feed from behind the New Jersey goal.

"We used the body a lot," McEachern said. "We had a couple of breakdowns and Patty bailed us out."

McEachern and Persson scored during a 2:05 span of the first period as Ottawa erased an early 1-0 deficit.

Sergei Brylin had the only Devils goal and Martin Brodeur finished with 22 saves for New Jersey, which hadn't played since beating Montreal at home in its season opener last Friday.

"We were a little sluggish at the start," captain Scott Stevens said. "A lot of it's timing. They're a good team, a fast team. We had some chances to score and didn't score."

The teams did not capitalize on the power play as Ottawa was 0-for-6 and the defending Stanley Cup champions 0-for-4.

Brylin put the Devils in front 8:18 in, converting Alexander Mogilny's goal-mouth pass on a 2-on-1 break.

Ottawa scored the go-ahead goal on Persson's first with the Senators when Magnus Arvedson found the defenseman as the late man on a rush and Persson's wrist shot squeezed through Brodeur's pads.

Lalime then turned in several key saves, stopping Patrik Elias from in close late in the second and later making a pad save on John Madden's short-handed breakaway.

"I'm not disappointed, but I was upset with some of the areas of our game," Devils coach Larry Robinson said. "Keeping our shifts short, getting the puck in deep. Not doing that cost us the first two goals."

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