- Tim Stutzle says the Senators have to move on without Brady Tkachuk
- Stutzle had no idea his captain had asked out before the June 21 trade
- Read below for his full comments from the European Player Media Tour
Tim Stutzle isn’t spending August relitigating the Brady Tkachuk trade.
The 24-year-old met the media Friday at the NHL/NHLPA European Player Media Tour in Munich, where the questions about his former captain came quickly.
“It’s his decision. There’s nothing we can do about it. For me, he was always a great teammate and, obviously, a great hockey player and we’re going to miss him. He was always there for me. But at the end of the day, we’ve got to move on,” Stutzle told NHL.com’s Tom Gulitti.
Ottawa shared its own look at his day in Germany:
Tkachuk’s exit on June 21 blindsided him the same way it blindsided everyone else. Stutzle said he never knew a trade request was coming, and he wasn’t going to go digging for one.
“You don’t really talk to your teammates about that. I love Ottawa and I want to be there for as long as I can. Maybe other people have different opinions. That’s none of my business,” Stutzle said.
He also made a point of thanking the guy who looked out for him as a teenager. Asked about what Tkachuk meant to him personally, Stutzle told David Alter of The Hockey News that his old captain set the tone from day one.
“I want to thank ‘Chucky’ for what he’s done for me, for my teammates. He took me in when I was younger and did everything in a possible way to make me feel welcome and he was always a good teammate and obviously a really, really good player,” Stutzle said.
Four draft picks came back the other way:
Steve Staios turned the No. 9 selection into William Eklund two days later, then added Andre Burakovsky from Chicago and goalie Samuel Ersson from Toronto:
A captaincy vacancy is still sitting there, and Stutzle is one of the candidates after wearing an ‘A’ last season. Claude Giroux has already had his say on the subject. Stutzle isn’t framing it as one man taking over a title.
“I think we always had great leaders in the room, so there’s not one guy who has to be the guy. We have so many guys who lead the team well where everybody has an open ear for anyone,” he said.
Stutzle led the Senators with 83 points (34 goals, 49 assists) in 80 games last season while taking on penalty-kill work under Travis Green.
The Senators finished 44-27-11 and closed the year on a 21-6-4 run to grab the second wild card in the East, then lost to eventual Stanley Cup champion Carolina in four games.
Camp opens next month with nobody wearing the ‘C’ and Stutzle carrying the biggest load in the room.
