Alex Kovalev, right, puts the puck between the legs of Ottawa goaltender Brian Elliot in the first period. (Fred Chartrand/Canadian Press)

Alex Kovalev and Maxim Lapierre scored in the shootout to lead the Montreal Canadiens to a 5-4 win over the hometown Ottawa Senators on Saturday night.

Both players made a move left on goaltender Brian Elliott, with Kovalev freezing the rookie and Lapierre changing speed on his approach before backhanding a shot under the crossbar.

Elliott, in search of his third consecutive win, stopped 28 of 32 shots and appeared in his first NHL shootout. The former University of Wisconsin Badgers star is getting starts ahead of the struggling Alex Auld and Martin Gerber, who was sent to the minors for conditioning on Thursday.

Ottawa's Jason Spezza missed high and wide on his shootout attempt against Jaroslav Halak, while Senators captain Daniel Alfredsson was stopped.

Kovalev opened the scoring at 7:50 of the first period with his 12th goal of the season on a 5-on-4 power play.

However, the right-winger finished with a minus-2 rating as Ottawa overcame a 3-1 deficit with three goals in the third period to force overtime.

After the game, Canadiens head coach Guy Carbonneau said despite blowing a two-goal lead, he was happy to get out of Ottawa with the win.

"For sure we would have like to have won it in the third period," said Carbonneau, whose 27-11-6 club sits fourth in the Eastern Conference. "But we still found a way to win despite the number of injured players that we have. We still seem to be doing some good things as a team."

Montreal remains without starting goalie Carey Price and key forwards Saku Koivu and Alex Tanguay.

Dany Heatley cut the Montreal lead to 3-2 at 5:30 of the period, beating Halak with a low shot under the netminder's blocker on a 3-on-1 rush.

Tom Kostopoulos restored the Canadiens' two-goal lead on a bad-angle shot, but the relentless Senators drew even on goals by Heatley and Mike Fisher less than seven minutes apart.

Nice cycling

The equalizer was the result of some nice cycling by the Senators, with Fisher taking a Chris Neil feed and snapping a shot to the far side for his fifth goal with 1:47 left in regulation.

Ottawa could have won the game in overtime as Spezza and Heatley swarmed Halak's net only to come up empty.

"We look like a different team than we did maybe a few weeks ago," said Spezza.

"Guys are battling pretty hard and I think that comes with a little bit of confidence and being a little more sure with the puck. We're starting to come around as a club and we've just got to try and get some wins together and hopefully climb up the standings."

The single point was huge for Ottawa, which is 12 points out of a playoff spot in the NHL's Eastern Conference with a 15-21-7 record.

"I think we're just trying to take one game at a time. Every game is big for us now," Senators forward Chris Kelly told Elliotte Friedman of Hockey Night in Canada. "Obviously, we got ourselves in a pretty deep hole [down 3-1]. We gotta play every game to the best of our ability."

Senators players were upbeat with their performance in battling back against one of the East's top teams.

"It's a good sign," Fisher said. "We didn't give up, we battled back. We gave ourselves a chance to win and we got a point."

With their gutsy third-period comeback, the Senators may have managed to keep general manager Bryan Murray from making any major personnel moves for at least the next few days.

The top forward line of Spezza, Alfredsson and Heatley combined for four points and was instrumental in keeping the team in the game.

Kelly and Montreal's Andrei Kostitsyn also exchanged goals in the first period, with the Canadiens enjoying a 2-1 advantage after 20 minutes.

The only goal in the second period came off the stick of Matt D'Agostini, who notched his first in 11 games following a torrid start after his recall from the American Hockey League in late November. Gregory Stewart set up the goal for his first NHL point.

With files from the Canadian Press