- Bruce Garrioch says Tkachuk spent four years telling teammates he wouldn’t re-sign in Ottawa
- Elliotte Friedman points to one meeting that convinced the Senators to trade their captain
- Read below for the full breakdown of Ottawa’s locker room fallout
Brady Tkachuk’s exit from Ottawa didn’t blindside anyone in that locker room.
Ottawa Citizen columnist Bruce Garrioch said on Sens 1-on-1 that Tkachuk spent four straight years telling teammates he had no plans to re-sign with the Senators. He passed that message along the whole time he wore the captain’s C.
That backstory explains the silence. Not one Senators player posted about Tkachuk’s departure after the trade, and the team account never thanked him.
The quiet looked cold from the outside. Inside the room it sounded a lot more like relief.
Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman went looking for the why on the 32 Thoughts podcast. He kept circling back to one meeting where Ottawa asked Tkachuk a flat-out question about his future.
Friedman laid out what the Senators wanted to hear:
“Two years from now, what are the chances that you re-sign here?”
Whatever Tkachuk’s camp said, Ottawa left that meeting sure it had to move him.
Here’s Friedman breaking down the whole saga:
The mood got worse after the 2026 Winter Olympics, per Friedman. Tkachuk won gold with Team USA next to brother Matthew, and the talk about the two of them landing in Florida together never died down.
Ottawa moved Tkachuk to the Panthers on June 21 for the ninth and 25th picks in this year’s draft, a conditional 2029 first-rounder, and a 2027 second. Matthew already took his own shot at the Senators after the deal went through.
Back on April 29, four days after Carolina swept the Senators out of round one, Tkachuk called himself “fully committed” to Ottawa. A few weeks later he was a Panther.
Tim Stutzle led the team with 83 points and looks like the next guy in line for the letter. He takes over a room that spent four years bracing for the day its captain walked out.
