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OTTAWA

The Senators pulled off an unbelievable comeback Tuesday night and are now on the verge of doing the unthinkable.

Kyle Turris scored the winner and pushed the heavily-favoured Montreal Canadiens to the brink of elimination as the Senators erased a two-goal, third-period deficit en route to a 3-2 OT victory in Game 4 of their playoff series.

Turris fired it by Habs backup Peter Budaj at 2:32 of OT to complete the comeback after Habs goalie Carey Price left at the buzzer with an undisclosed injury.

Cory Conacher tied it up in the dying seconds and Mika Zibanejad also beat Price just when it looked like the Senators were going to allow the Habs to steal the victory in front of a sellout of 20,500 at Scotiabank Place.

"I was just trying to throw something on the net. Luckily, it went in," said Turris. "We know Game 5 is going to be a lot tougher. We've got to play a full 60 minutes instead of just the last 20."

Despite getting goals from Alex Galchenyuk and P.K. Subban, the Senators have pulled out to a commanding 3-1 series lead on the Habs and can send them packing from the playoffs with a victory in Game 5 Thursday night at the Bell Centre.

The Senators completed the comeback with 22.6 seconds left and Craig Anderson out of the net during a scramble in front of Price. Conacher picked up the loose puck in front and fired it home on the glove side to send it overtime.

"That's probably the biggest goal of my career," said Conacher.

Zibanejad broke Price's bid for a shutout with 8:05 left in the third when he brought Ottawa to within a goal. It looked like he redirected a pass from Chris Neil by Price with his skate, but after being reviewed in Toronto it was ruled a goal.

"I was just hoping for the goal. I was pretty sure (it was a goal) when it happened. It took a weird bounce off my stick or skate ... whatever. They allowed it so it's a good goal," said Zibanejad.

The Senators have outscored the Habs 9-0 in the third period in this series. Zibanejad's goal gave Ottawa some life.

Trying to take control of this series, they were completely outplayed by the Habs before that. The visitors took a 2-0 lead after 40 minutes, took the home crowd out of the game and took Ottawa to task by owning the puck and the opportunities.

"We tried to protect a lead instead of go out and play (in the third)," said Habs blueliner Josh Gorges. "We sat back and we were alright, we did some good things. We battled hard, we got pucks out when we needed to and guys were blocking shots.

"It's just unfortunate we allowed them to come into the zone too easily (on the game-tying goal) and then it was a scramble."

The Habs struck quick with two goals in a span of 1:02.

A bad giveaway near the blueline by Conacher, resulted in Jeff Halpern throwing a pass to Galchenyuk moving to the net and he beat Anderson on the stick side at 3:54. That left the building in stunned silence.

At 2:52, the much-despised Subban, who had the fans chanting his name at the start of the game, finally broke the scoreless tie.

"The game's a full 60 minutes, sometimes longer," said Anderson. "There are going to be times when you don't have momentum, but you have to find a way to stay in the game. My job is to make saves and if we make a mistake, cover up for them and give our boys an opportunity."

bruce.garrioch@sunmedia.ca

Twitter: @sungarrioch

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