TAMPA, Fla. – Ruslan Fedotenko scored a tiebreaking goal midway through the third period and the Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Islanders 5-2 last night.

Fedotenko made it 3-2 with 10:43 left on a deflection from in close. Fredrik Modin’s shot hit an Islanders defender and was redirected toward Fedotenko.

Martin St. Louis gave Tampa Bay a two-goal lead at 14:27 before Modin scored a power-play goal to make it 5-2 with 2:27 to go.

Tampa Bay also got goals from Pavel Kubina and Vincent Lecavalier, who has a four-game streak. John Grahame stopped 30 shots.

Bruno Gervais and Alexei Yashin scored for the Islanders,who trail eighthplace Montreal by five points in the race for the final Eastern Conference playoff spot. New York has lost three straight after a four-game winning streak.

The Islanders traded away four veteran players – forwards Mark Parrish and Oleg Kvasha, and defensemen Brad Lukowich and Brent Sopel – at the dealing deadline and then lost top defenseman Alexei Zhitnik to a season-ending ankle injury.

Gervais scored his first NHL goal – in his 12th game – to put the Isles ahead 1-0 in the first period. After Kubina’s power-play goal tied it at 16:18, the Islanders went up 2-1 when Yashin scored on the rebound with 2:08 left. Lecavalier redirected Vinny Prospal’s pass to get Tampa Bay even at 2 with 27.4 seconds remaining in the second.

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SENATORS 4, DEVILS 0 Dany Heatley’s power-play tally keyed a three-goal second period, and Ray Emery made 22 saves as the Ottawa Senators regained sole possession of first place in the Eastern Conference with a 4-0 win over the Devils last night.

Ottawa also got goals from Patrick Eaves, Antoine Vermette, and Zdeno Chara.The surging Senators have 10 wins in 12 games, and their 98 points give them a five-point lead over the Buffalo Sabres in the Northeast Division. They also moved two points ahead of Southeast Divisionleading Carolina Hurricanes in the conference standings.

Emery continued his solid play as Ottawa’s top netminder while Dominik Hasek recovers from a groin injury sustained last month in the Olympics. The rookie is 9-1-1 since the Olympic break.

The Devils and Tampa Bay Lightning each have 76 points and are tied for sixth place in the East.

After a scoreless first period, Heatley gave Ottawa a 1-0 lead at 4:08 of the second. Eaves also scored on the power play when he deflected Andrej Meszaros’s point shot past Martin Brodeur at 13:42.

Vermette made it 3-0 with 20 seconds remaining.

In the third, Emery made six saves to preserve his third shutout. The key stop came against Patrik Elias, who split the Ottawa defense for a dead-on shot with 2:25 to go.