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“It’s the whole bus, and I was like, ‘Oh, my goodness my apartment is too small for this,’ ” Boileau said with a smile. “You know what? I think this is exactly what Jonathan needed to give him a bit of a lift.

“He’s been holding strong. He’s mentally strong, he’s as physically strong as he can be, but I think this glimpse of what he misses from home (is what he needed) to get him ready to come back.”

The team was thrilled to get a chance to see Pitre. He is an inspiration to anyone he meets.

“It was awesome,” said Turris, who stays in regular contact with Pitre by email. “Any time you get to see him or spend time with him, that just changes your outlook on everything. He’s such a positive, energetic kid, he’s lots of fun to be around.

“It’s amazing. It’s something we can all learn from, that’s for sure. That positivity and thoughtfulness he has is incredible. It gives you a boost. You want to work your tail off when you see him battling daily wars in real life and we’re just playing a game that we’re lucky having fun to do. It just makes you want to work that much harder and have success for him.”

Boileau said the prognosis is good for Pitre having the second stem-cell transplant. The players wanted to wish him good luck.

“It was nice that it worked out that we were able to stop in and see Jonathan on our way in,” centre Zack Smith said. “As usual, he was in high spirits and just a very positive kid. It’s quite amazing how positive he is no matter what he’s going through.

“Hopefully, it was uplifting for him. He’s one of our biggest fans, if not our biggest fan, and it’s probably hard on him that he can’t be at games in Ottawa. It’s nice to hear we’ll have him at the game here. We were just fortunate to be able to visit him on this trip. We’ll try to get a win for him.”

That would be a great gift for Pitre from the Senators.

bgarrioch@postmedia.com

Twitter: @sungarrioch

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