Chouinard making most of fresh start

OTTAWA (AP) -- Eric Chouinard is making the most of his chance for a fresh start.
Chouinard scored in the first period and assisted on Jeremy Roenick's goal in the second, lifting the Philadelphia Flyers to a 2-2 tie with the Ottawa Senators on Thursday night.

Chouinard, acquired from Montreal on Jan. 29, scored his second goal in three games with Philadelphia before setting up Roenick's 18th of the season.

Chosen 16th overall as the Canadiens' first pick in the 1998 draft, Chouinard had 12 goals and 12 assists in 32 games with Utah of the AHL this season.

"I've been lucky," Chouinard said. "I've been playing with some great players. If you look at the game tonight, two or three times I had great passes with Jeremy."

Roenick tied the game at 2 with 4:01 left in the second when he took Chouinard's pass off the boards and put a shot between goalie Martin Prusek's legs.

"Chouinard was great again," Roenick said. "He's really showing a lot of poise. He's playing with a lot of speed and a lot of strength.

"He's got a great shot, and if he uses it to his benefit he's going to score a lot of goals."

Flyers goalie Roman Cechmanek made 43 saves as Ottawa outshot Philadelphia 45-30 overall, including a 19-11 margin in the opening period.

"I think we dodged a little bit of a bullet tonight, there's no question about that," Roenick said. "Our goaltender gave us a point tonight."

Senators captain Daniel Alfredsson had two assists, setting up first-period goals by Zdeno Chara and Todd White. Ottawa beat the New York Rangers 5-3 at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday to end a three-game losing streak.

"I think we skated well, we were using all our lines, and both the penalty killing and the power play did a good job tonight," Alfredsson said. "If it wasn't for a hot goaltender, we would have had a win."

Prusek subbed for Senators All-Star goalie Patrick Lalime, who missed the game because of the flu. Prusek is 9-1-1 for Ottawa.

"Both goalies played well," White said. "They had quite a few chances where Marty came up big for us. It was just a hard-fought game where a 2-2 tie was maybe right."

Philadelphia learned earlier in the day that left wing Simon Gagne will miss at least three weeks after sustaining a partially torn right groin in the Flyers' 2-1 win over the Islanders on Tuesday.

Chara opened the scoring with his fifth goal, on a power play, scoring just two seconds after Philadelphia killed off the first of two minor penalties.

Chouinard drew the Flyers even just 1:44 later with a power-play goal.

White restored Ottawa's one-goal lead when he scored his 20th of the season.

Game notes
The teams split their four-game season series 1-1-2. ... The Flyers are 16-7-4-1 on the road. Ottawa is 18-4-2-1 at home. ... Ottawa recalled G Ray Emery from Binghamton of the AHL earlier in the day to replace Lalime. ... The Senators have yet to score a five-on-three goal this season.