The Sens skated this morning at Canadian Tire Centre and afterward head coach Guy Boucher chatted with the media about his team's impressive start to the season, provided an update on Kyle Turris and more...



His thoughts on the Sens' start to the season:

When you look at the overall picture, whether it's Erik missing for 5 games, whether it's the fact that we were in the final four and it's hard to start back again…there are so many things that could go wrong for us and right now people don't put us in the playoffs. We're right up there with the two favourite teams, Tampa and Toronto, and we've got basically the same number of points as Pittsburgh, who were the Stanley Cup champions, so with everything that's been happening to us it's pretty impressive what the guys have been able to do.



On what it actually means to him to face his former teams:

Go back 5 years and I would have said "You know what? It's important". First of all, it's the team that hired me for my first pro job in the American League so that would make it more special but there's certainly nothing for me, as an individual, to prove or have a revenge on…it's the opposite. They're the organization that gave me my first pro job and I owe them for that so I have respect for every opponent. It's the same with Tampa, people would like me to say "Oh I want to beat these guys!"…I want to beat these guys like I want to beat everybody. Steve Yzerman is the guy that hired me for my first NHL job and I owe him a lot. In that respect, I think people will continue asking questions where the reality is that I'm so past any of that stuff that it's really, really a total focus on our team and on circumstances.

On Anderson starting and sticking to their plan of splitting games with the goalies over these 4 games:

We've got a general plan but that's always subject to change because of circumstances. Sometimes it's the team you play, sometimes it's how your goalie feels, sometimes it's injuries, sometimes it's travelling so we have to monitor those things dynamically. But there are times when we'd like to stick to a certain plan like this one. We juggled for a full day trying to figure out which it would be and we wanted for it to be "2 and 2". We weren't sure how we were going to manage it at the beginning but once we decided, we were hoping to be able to keep it and we kept it.



On update on Kyle Turris' availability for tomorrow's game against Montreal:

I doubt it. It's better and he was on the ice but I'm not sure it's the right thing to do. We'll see tomorrow morning because you never know. With those things, when the virus is gone, it's gone so he might wake up tomorrow morning and it's gone. It's definitely better but until it's gone I don't think it's the right thing to do. But do I believe that he'll be there on Thursday? Yes, I really do. So we might have to get through one more game without him.



On being fortunate that Turris' virus didn't spread around the locker room:

That's why we got him out the minute we saw it. "Oh boy. It's a virus…let's get him out of here". We're very lucky because it's a very strong virus that he had and if that went around our room, we might as well send the two points to the other team in an envelope and stay home.

Tweet from @Senators: #Sens practice underway this morning at @CdnTireCtr and we're joined by 200+ minor hockey coaches as part of the @TimHortons Coaches Clinic. pic.twitter.com/ex7rLPRa37

Speaking of Turris, he also spoke with the media this morning after re-joining his teammates for today's practice. Turris hasn't played since last Tuesday's game against the Kings and actually pinpointed that as the day he started feeling the effects of this virus.



The details behind his sickness:

After my pre-game nap for Tuesday's game, I woke up and had a real, real bad headache. I got to the rink and Dr. Chow, Gerry and Dom all helped me and worked on me and made it into a tolerable headache so I didn't think much of it. After the game, I went home and went to bed and things got a lot worse. I knew something wasn't right so it just kind of went from there.



On watching the games from home:

It's brutal. You want to be a part of the game and help the team win. Obviously it was a good couple of games for the group but you want to be out there and you want to be helping.