OTTAWA (AP) -- The Buffalo Sabres are three points from playoff

position. If they miss the playoffs by a similar margin, they'll

be bound to look back at their five losses to Ottawa.

Especially their latest.

Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff said he was "embarrassed" after the

Ottawa Senators took advantage of an undisciplined Buffalo

Sabres team, scoring three goals in nine chances in a 4-2

victory Tuesday night.

The win gave Ottawa the season series by a 5-1 margin.

"I'm very embarrassed. Embarrassed for our fans, embarrassed for

how we played the last forty minutes," Ruff said. "It's not

acceptable this time of year

Brendan Bell scored twice and Filip Kuba had three assists for

the Senators, giving him 31 on the season.

The Senators dominated play despite going down 2-0 after the

first period. They outshot the Sabres 36-13, including 13-1 in

the second period and 13-6 in the first.

"I thought we outshot them pretty good in the first period

(13-6)," Senators forward Dany Heatley said. "A couple bad

breaks, a couple mistakes that they scored on. Other than that I

think we played a real solid game, and the shots were a pretty

good indication of that.

The Sabres opened the scoring 4:02 into the game with Toni

Lydman blasting in a shot from the top of the circle to the left

of Senators goaltender Brian Elliot.

Jason Pominville gave Buffalo a 2-0 lead later in the period and

the Sabres ended the first period with two goals on six shots.

Dany Heatley got the Senators going with his 33rd goal just 1:30

into the second period. Ottawa tied it on a power play when Bell

put a cross-ice pass from Daniel Alfredsson past Mikael

Tellqvist.

It was the only power-play goal the Senators managed on five

tries compared to Buffalo having none in that span.

Buffalo's penalty problems continued into the third period when

Drew Stafford's elbow to Heatley's face put the Senators on the

power play once again. This time they made it count, with Jason

Spezza saucering a pass across to Alfredsson, who tapped it past

a sprawling Tellqvist.

The Buffalo parade to the penalty box continued, and with Paul

Gaustad in the box for high-sticking, Bell picked up his second

power-play goal of the night. Bell scored with a scorching blast

from just inside the blue line that beat Tellqvist cleanly to

the glove side.

"Today we had a lot of power plays and we had a lot of

opportunities to make good plays," Kuba said. "The puck was just

going in for us today."