'Canes snag 13 of possible 18 points in home stand

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- No team this season has been more ready for a road trip than the Carolina Hurricanes.

Bates Battaglia and Ron Francis scored 53 seconds apart early in the third period, and Rod Brind'Amour added a goal with 8 minutes left as Carolina tied the Ottawa Senators 4-4 Tuesday night.

The Hurricanes finished their franchise-record nine-game homestand 4-0-3-2, getting 13 of a possible 18 points.

Coach Paul Maurice joked that some of his players probably had their bags packed days ago getting ready to travel to Boston on Thursday night.

"I've never seen nine home games in a row,'' Brind'Amour said. "I'm surprised we didn't get real stale. That's the good thing, we got some points out of these games. That could have really hurt us.

"Now we've got to find a way to get back to our road game, which it seems like we haven't played all year. Changing gears will be good for us,'' he said.

The three-goal third period wasn't enough for the Hurricanes to pull out a win after falling behind 2-0 in the first because Marian Hossa and Radek Bonk scored late goals for Ottawa. Bonk's came with 6:15 left in regulation.

The Hurricanes had a power play with 3:03 left in overtime, but Jan Hlavac hit the crossbar and missed on another chance close in. Senators goaltender Patrick Lalime stopped 37 of 41 shots.

Carolina's power play was a dismal 0-for-9.

"We didn't play well enough on the power play to win the game,'' Maurice said. "We've got to finish on that last one.

"It was exciting anyway. It's better watching an eight-goal tie than a 1-1 tie.''

Carolina's third straight overtime game gave the club at least one point in 11 straight games and snapped Ottawa's three-game winning streak.

"When you look at your schedule and see nine straight home games you're hoping to get a lot of points, and the danger is there are normally a couple of stinkers in there,'' Francis said. "It's very easy to get into a rut. But I thought our guys did a good job. We had a pretty good run. A couple of those games weren't easy to play.''

Hossa tied it at 3 just 2½ minutes after Francis gave Carolina its first lead, banging in a rebound on the power play for his team-leading ninth goal.

Bonk's goal came less than 2 minutes after Brind'Amour scored his team-leading ninth, banging the puck off Ottawa defenseman Magnus Arvedson and past a stunned Lalime.

The Senators finally got to Carolina goalie Kevin Weekes, who has been spectacular this month. He allowed more than two goals for the first time in 10 games.

"The first two periods, we were in the driver's seat,'' Lalime said. "We were leading, and we're usually pretty good in the third. They came out hard and they got some lucky goals right off the bat. If you look at the last 15 minutes, where we came back, I think it was a good effort the whole way.''

Special teams got Carolina back in the game in the second.

Erik Cole, who also had two assists, stole the puck from Ottawa defenseman Chris Phillips at the blue line and scored his first career shorthanded goal 1:46 into the period to cut it to 2-1.

The Hurricanes also weathered a five-on-three power play for 1:21 midway through the period as Weekes, leading the NHL in goals-against average and save percentage, came up big on several shots against the second-best power-play unit in the league.

Carolina played its worst period of its long homestand, allowing 16 first-period shots to fall behind 2-0.

Jason Spezza, the second overall pick in the 2001 draft, scored 2:52 in when he beat Weekes with a low shot off a faceoff.

Martin Havlat put the Senators up by two goals 9 seconds after Nic Wallin went off for interference, scoring his third of the season with 1:27 left in the period. Hossa had an assist to run his point streak to seven games.

Game notes
Ottawa has scored at least one power-play goal in 14 of 16 games. ... Spezza has seven points in 12 games since being called up from the minors on Oct. 24. ... Ottawa had just seven first-period goals before getting two against Carolina. ... Carolina hadn't scored four goals since beating the New York Islanders 4-2 on Oct. 30.