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OFF THE GLASS

Injured Senators players are showing signs of progress. Cody Ceci (upper body), Ryan Dzingel (lower body), Max McCormick (unspecified) and Alex Formenton (concussion) won’t play against Dallas, but some could return for Saturday’s contest against Montreal. “They’re all going really well,” Boucher said. “I don’t know how many are going to get the OK … nobody before (Monday), but, after (Monday), because there’s quite a few days before the next game, for sure there will be guys back. How many? I don’t know. They could all be back. That’s possible. All these guys are doing well, but you know how that is because they can be doing well today and then all of a sudden ‘whoops’ and it backtracks a little bit.” … Former Ottawa goalie Ben Bishop, now with Dallas, is 9-0-4 against the Senators with a 2.04 goals-against average and a .932 save-percentage. Defenceman Chris Wideman, who spends a lot of time with Bishop in St. Louis in the off-season, invited his friend for dinner Sunday. “It will be be good to see a close friend and it’s definitely time to get my third of the year on him (Monday) for sure,” Wideman said with a laugh. “We’re really close and he’s someone that has helped me a lot in my career. He kind of paved the way for me in St. Louis. We’ve been friends for a lot of years.”

Photo by Adrian Wyld / THE CANADIAN PRESS

THE LAST WORDS

The Senators dressed 11 forwards and seven defencemen against the Kings and they’ll likely stick with that alignment. That means Belleville callup Nick Paul will likely be scratched for the second consecutive game. “We’re debating it right now,” Boucher said. “I’ll be honest with you, my original plan was to go with seven (blueliners) last game and six (Monday). But it went so well it will be hard to go with the original plan. We’ll see, but I doubt it and we’ll probably go with seven again” … Defenceman Thomas Chabot (two goals, six assists) and Tierney (two goals, five assists) are on five-game point streaks. Chabot’s eight points are a franchise record for a Senators blueliner in the first five games. The previous record of seven was set by Filip Kuba in 2008-09 and matched by Erik Karlsson in 2015-16 and 2016-17. Kuba has the longest point streak to start the season in franchise history with eight games (11 assists) in 2008-09 … Boucher has a 6-0-0 coaching record against the Stars … Senators prospects Drake Batherson (two goals, two assists) and Filip Chlapik (one goal, three assists) had four-point efforts for the American Hockey League’s Belleville Senators in a 6-2 win over the Manitoba Moose on Saturday. Winger Rudolfs Balcers also had two goals.

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