Hurricanes 5, Senators 1

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RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -Joe Corvo scored three goals against his old team, Cam Ward stopped 16 shots and the Carolina Hurricanes bounced back from their worst loss of the season to beat the Ottawa Senators 5-1 Sunday.

It was the first hat trick of Corvo's NHL career, and it came about two months after he and Patrick Eaves were traded to Carolina from Ottawa. Eaves also enjoyed the reunion with the Senators, getting his first goal since the trade to help the Hurricanes improve to 13-4-1 in their past 18 games.

That stretch includes an 11-1-1 run at the friendly confines of the RBC Center, where they will play four more games this season.

Scott Walker also scored for Carolina, which was coming off a miserable performance Friday against Buffalo. Ward was pulled after giving up four goals in seven shots in the first period in that one - the final score was 7-1 - but he was much better against Ottawa.

Dany Heatley scored for the Senators with a two-man advantage about 3 minutes into the game, and they still had nearly 90 seconds of power play left to increase their lead. Yet the Hurricanes held on, thanks to some brilliant penalty killing from Eric Staal.

He had two excellent scoring chances while Carolina was short-handed, then deftly controlled the puck with a bit of a skating exhibition to use more time. By the time the Hurricanes were back at even strength, they clearly had seized the momentum.

It carried over when they got their first opportunity on the power play. Defenseman Mike Commodore, who was traded along with Cory Stillman to the Senators for Corvo and Eaves, was called for boarding, and Eaves was there to take advantage.

He redirected a shot from Frantisek Kaberle past Martin Gerber, another former Carolina player, to tie the score, and the Hurricanes were on their way. They had a 4-on-3 opportunity a few minutes later and Corvo scored his first goal, beating Gerber with a low slap shot into the bottom right corner of the net.

The lead grew to 3-1 when Walker scored, using a nifty cross-ice pass from Tim Gleason. At that point, with Carolina controlling play, the only question about the outcome became the final margin. Early in the third period, on another power play, Corvo got his second goal with another blast from the blue line.

His final tally came with 2:10 left in the game, when he completed a rush on Gerber to make it 5-1.