Jim Montgomery's Dallas Stars (11-9-2) play host to Guy Boucher's Ottawa Senators (9-10-3) on Friday evening. Game time at the American Airlines Center is 7 p.m. CT. The game will be televised on Fox Sports Southwest. Friday's game is the Stars' Hockey Fights Cancer night.

The Stars are in the midst of an extremely busy stretch of hockey. They are playing for the fourth time in six nights and the fifth time in eight nights. The schedule will not relent much after this, as the team heads right out after the game to start a road trip that starts in Colorado on Saturday night. After two much-needed off nights, the Stars face back-to-back games in Edmonton on Tuesday and Calgary on Wednesday.

It has been a roller-coaster month for the Stars after November started off with back-to-back road wins in Toronto and Washington. Since that time, Dallas has gone 3-4-2. A poor second and third period in a road loss to the New York Rangers on Monday spilled over into a rough night in Pittsburgh on Wednesday.

The Stars enter this game coming off a 5-1 road shellacking at the hands of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Sidney Crosby led the way with three points (one goal, two assists) in a game that was 3-0 by the end of the first period and 5-0 after two. Roope Hintz (2nd goal) broke up Casey DeSmith's shutout bid at 7:55 of the third period. Dallas mustered just 19 shots on goal for the game, spending far too much time in its own end of the ice. Both puck management and coverages were suspect for the Stars. In goal, Anton Khudobin stopped just 11 of 16 shots. With Ben Bishop unavailable, Landon Bow came in to relieve Khudobin after Tanner Pearson made it 4-0 at 8:52 of the second period. Bow stopped all 14 shots he faced.

On Thursday, the Stars recalled defenseman Taylor Fedun from the AHL's Texas Stars, and reassigned defenseman Ben Gleason to the farm team in Cedar Park.

The Senators are in the second game of a four-game road trip that will continue next week against the New York Rangers on Monday and Philadelphia Flyers the next night. After winning three of four games, including a 6-4 road upset of the powerhouse Tampa Bay Lightning, the Senators have been battered defensively the last two games, getting outscored by a 13-9 margin in back-to-back regulation losses.

On Wednesday, the Senators sustained a 6-4 road loss to the Minnesota Wild. The Sens trailed 2-0 after the first period and 4-1 after the second before rallying back to briefly tie the game in the third period. on goals by Thomas Chabot (shorthanded, 6th), Christian Jaros (1st) and Colin White (7th). Earlier, Jaros assisted on a Chris Tierney goal (3rd) that cut a 3-0 gap to two goals in the middle stages of the second period. Craig Anderson stopped 28 of 33 shots for Ottawa before a late empty-netter sealed the win for Minnesota. Eric Staal and Matt Dumba each scored twice for the Wild.

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