Thomas lived with the Tkachuk family in St. Louis during his rookie season<\/a> \u2014 it led to the Senators captain rushing down the tunnel to get assistance for a face that was now cut, and an eye that was black and already beginning to swell.<\/p>\n\u201cHe\u2019s just going to the hard areas, that\u2019s why,\u201d said linemate Tim St\u00fctzle. \u201cI mean, I guess so,\u201d responded Tkachuk to that sentiment.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be honest, I\u2019ve never really thought about it,\u201d says his other linemate, Fabian Zetterlund. \u201cI know about the Thomas one and maybe one more, but, put a cage on him, I don\u2019t know,\u201d he joked.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely happening in a lot of battles,\u201d said Tkachuk. \u201cI mean honestly, I\u2019ve been very blessed, very lucky, that I haven\u2019t had any issues with high sticks. I think it\u2019s just more that I can\u2019t believe it keeps happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, the five penalties have led to five power plays for the Senators \u2014 who have scored nine power play goals in their last 22 opportunities, boosting their power play to a 25.5 per cent clip, sixth in the league entering play Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt could happen to anyone,\u201d said Zetterlund. \u201cBut it happened to him, so that\u2019s good for us, we get a power play. Hope his face is alright.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDo whatever it takes to help the boys,\u201d said Tkachuk. \u201cSo if that means taking high sticks we\u2019ll keep it going to get results and wins.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. That\u2019s the saying the great English wordsmith…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-354696","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}