Ottawa Senators defenceman Karel Rachunek sure has a flare for the dramatic. 
The second-year rearguard picked a perfect time to score his first goal of the season, putting the puck past Toronto goaltender Curtis Joseph with five seconds remaining in overtime to pull out a 2-1 win at the Corel Centre on Saturday. 
It appeared that the Leafs, who are a pitiful 1-10-1 in 12 regular-season games against the Sens, would escape from the nation's capital with a tie, but a miscue by Toronto defenceman Dmitry Yushkevich gave the Senators their 11th win of the season. 
Yushkevich failed to get a pass across the offensive zone, and the puck was intercepted by Wade Redden, who fired it up to Rachunek for a 2-on-1 break. 
Toronto defenceman Aki Berg played the situation perfectly, and it actually looked like Rachunek had run out space to get a scoring chance, but he found a hole past Joseph. 
"I think Curtis Joseph thought I was going to pass it," said Rachunek. "He was cheating a bit so there was space . . . it was a lucky goal but I'm real excited about it." 
Up until Rachunek's goal this contest was truly a goaltender's duel, with Joseph and Patrick Lalime frustrating the opposition at every opportunity. 
Joseph was particularly outstanding in the third period and made 25 saves to capture first star honours. Not to be outdone, Lalime made 29 saves for the game's second star. 
"We got out of it pretty well. We came back from a tough first period and at the start of the second, we took the game from there," said Lalime. 
With the win, the Sens extend their undefeated streak to nine games. Despite the overtime loss, the Leafs maintain their hold on top spot in the Northeast Division. 
"As the game went on, we weren't as sharp and then we made the mistake at the end," said Toronto coach and general manager Pat Quinn. "Our power play wasn't as effective as we think it should have been." 
The Sens looked slow and sluggish in the first period, struggling to get the puck in the Toronto zone. 
Their troubles were compounded when enforcer Andre Roy received a five-minute penalty and a game misconduct for hitting Berg and drawing blood over his right eye. 
It was a questionable call, since television replays clearly showed Berg's cut didn't occur from an elbow or stick, as thought by officials, but from his head hitting the glass. 
If killing off a five-minute penalty wasn't enough for the Sens to handle, Bill Muckalt made his team's job a little more difficult when he hit Darcy Tucker from behind into the goalpost, giving Toronto a two-man advantage. 
The Leafs, who are a pitiful 24th overall on the power play with an 11.3 per cent conversion rate, didn't waste a perfect opportunity to strike first against the Sens. 
Yushkevich fired a beautiful snap snot from the point that beat Lalime on the stick side at 14:15 of the first. 
It was Yushkevich's fourth goal of the season, and 200th point of his career. 
The Sens, who managed just one shot on net in the opening period, picked up the pace in the second period, and created a number of scoring chances but were consistently denied by Joseph. 
After near misses from Chris Herberger, Marian Hossa and Zdeno Chara, the Sens finally put one past Joseph with 36 seconds remaining in the period. 
With time winding down Toronto forward Mikael Renberg coughed up the puck at the Ottawa blueline, resulting in a 2-on-1 attempt for the Sens. 
Off a pass from Daniel Alfredsson, Shawn McEachern and Todd White sprinted into the Toronto zone with only Bryan McCabe back. 
It looked like the scoring chance wouldn't result in a shot, but McEachern managed to get the puck past McCabe and out in front to White, who put it through Joseph's pads for his ninth goal of the season. 
"We've been finding ways to win and tonight was no different," said White."It's good to see that we didn't panic. We stayed with the game plan and came back. We had a lot of chances in the second period and weren't able to get any by Joseph, so the tying goal was important for us." 
Both Joseph and Lalime played prominent roles in the third period, making a number of outstanding saves to keep the game tied in regulation. 
Joseph came up big in the dying seconds of regulation, making a nice leg save on Martin Havlat to send the game into overtime. 
Notes: Toronto centre Robert Reichel left the ice with an undisclosed injury six minutes into the game. He ran into an Ottawa post and the end boards following a hit by Magnus Arvedson.