Numminen scores twice as Coyotes rally to beat Senators

PHOENIX -- A week ago, Teppo Numminen played in his 1,000th game. Now he's on the threshold of his 100th goal.

Points don't come as naturally to the Phoenix captain as steady defensive play, but he has his moments.

Numminen scored Phoenix's last two goals as the Coyotes beat the Ottawa Senators 3-2 Saturday night to vault into a tie for fifth in the Western Conference playoff race.

"Yeah, 99 goals," Numminen said, shrugging off the suggestion that he was close to his first hat trick. "Two is enough, though. It's been unbelievable. The nice thing is that everybody says good things about you."

Numminen, a defenseman, had a career-high four assists in a 6-1 win over Vancouver on Thursday, and the back-to-back highlight games indicate the way the Coyotes are turning it on in their stretch drive.

It was the fourth straight win for Phoenix, which is 6-0-1-1 and has collected 14 standings points in eight games. The Coyotes pulled even with Los Angeles and St. Louis, all with 73 points.

Numminen scored the winner 9:13 into the third period, beating Patrick Lalime on the stick side with a slap shot from the top of the circle in a four-on-four situation. His other goal came on a power play.

"The difference in the hockey game was special teams," Ottawa coach Jacques Martin said. "They get a goal four-on-four and on the power play."

Daymond Langkow also scored for the Coyotes, who had to rally from a 2-0 deficit after Ottawa's Marian Hossa and Daniel Alfredsson scored in the first period.

"We still felt confident we could come back and win the game," Langkow said. "We kind of stuck with it, got a bit of a lucky bounce there on my goal, a nice play on Teppo's second goal and just rolled from there."

Phoenix goalie Sean Burke was flawless for the last 49:48, finishing with 19 saves and holding an opponent to two goals or fewer for the seventh consecutive game.

The Senators started fast, taking 16 shots in the first period, but were outskated the last two.

But Phoenix put Lalime, who stopped 26 shots, under extreme pressure in the third. Michael Johnson and Ladislav Nagy both slid into him on separate breakaways, and Lalime faced 11 shots while Burke faced just two.

Hossa and Alfredsson scored goals 25 seconds apart.

Hossa sent the puck down the slot and beat Burke, who was screened by Senators forward Shawn McEachern, on the left side 9:47 into the game, and Alfredsson scored his team-high 31st goal on a shot from the circle at the 10:12 mark.

"I'm not so sure our team would have reacted in the same manner earlier in the year," coach Bob Francis said. "I thought our players responded well. That's a character win."

The Coyotes kept in it by answering quickly.

Langkow tried to make a centering pass from the goal line, and the puck glanced in off Lalime's left skate with 8:23 left in the period.

Ottawa's Curtis Leschyshyn tripped Shane Doan to stop a breakaway about two minutes later, and the Coyotes converted on their first power play when Doan passed across to Numminen underneath. He redirected it to tie the score 2-2 with 5:48 left.

"We played a good beginning, but then in the second period we weren't playing well," Hossa said. "We've got to regroup.

Notes:

Hossa's goal, his 24th, was his career 100th and his 10th point in eight games. . . . The Coyotes have outscored opponents 11-3 in the first period of six post-Olympic games. . . . Alfredsson had a hip injury and didn't play when the Senators beat Phoenix 6-0 in Ottawa Dec. 13. . . . Phoenix is eight games above .500 for the first time all season. . . . Lalime is 7-4-3 in 14 starts, but has lost twice and given up eight goals in his last two.