{"id":936642,"date":"2026-10-22T07:38:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T07:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/936642\/"},"modified":"2026-10-22T07:38:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T07:38:08","slug":"senators-fans-steal-the-show-in-brady-tkachuks-emotionally-charged-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/936642\/","title":{"rendered":"Senators fans steal the show in Brady Tkachuk’s emotionally charged return"},"content":{"rendered":"

KANATA, Ont. \u2014 For years, Ottawa Senators<\/a> fans watched Brady Tkachuk<\/a> bring the fight to opponents. When he returned to Ottawa as a despised member of the Florida Panthers, they unleashed their own combative spirit, bringing a level of sustained savagery that would make even the most vindictive fanbases proud.<\/p>\n

Sens supporters were merciless on their former captain on Wednesday night, as Tkachuk \u2014 who was traded to the Florida Panthers in June after informing Ottawa he would not sign another contract with the team \u2014 returned for the first time to the city he called home for eight seasons. The Canadian Tire Centre in Kanata throbbed with an energy worthy of a Game 7, as emotions pent up for months \u2014 maybe even longer \u2014 spilled onto the ice like blood after a brawl.<\/p>\n

While the start of the game was marked by rigorous boos, the end featured what remained of an announced sellout crowd gleefully cheering as the final seconds ticked away in a thunderous 5-1 Ottawa win.<\/p>\n

A couple events \u2014 Tkachuk himself scoring on Florida\u2019s first shot of the contest and Sens goalie Linus Ullmark being forced out of the game with a lower-body strain in the third \u2014 threatened to sap the masses of their zealous desire to deride. But the home team more than did its part, giving credence to one of the night\u2019s more common chants \u2014\u00a0We don\u2019t need you!\u00a0\u2014 by scoring five unanswered goals to record about the most emotionally charged victory you could ever hope to witness in October.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t expect it to be that much,\u201d said Senators defenceman Jake Sanderson<\/a> after the win. \u201cLittle crazy, but you know what, we have great fans, they\u2019re passionate, they want to see our team do good and win. They brought the energy tonight and it\u2019s awesome to see everyone on their feet at the end of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanderson, slowed by a lower-body injury, was playing his first game since seeing just a handful of minutes in the season-opener on Oct. 3 in Toronto. On a night the fans absolutely torched a bridge to the past with their treatment of Tkachuk, the best part may have been Sanderson \u2014 who finished with two assists and a team-high 22:36 of ice time \u2014 illuminating the path forward by reminding everyone how important he is to this squad.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time he has the puck, every time he makes a play, it\u2019s so effortless,\u201d said Ottawa forward Tim Stutzle, who continued his own fantastic start to the campaign with a 1-1-2 showing.<\/p>\n

Of course, anytime a Tkachuk is involved \u2014 be it Brady or big brother Matthew, his linemate with the Panthers \u2014 you know things are going to get physical. Right after Brady opened the scoring with a power-play goal 10 minutes into the game, Ottawa\u2019s Hayden Hodgson and Florida\u2019s Bokondji Imama dropped the gloves following the centre-ice face-off.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Early in the third, it was Sens forward Ridly Greig and Florida\u2019s Sam Bennett throwing knuckles in the evening\u2019s second tilt. Beyond that, the numerous scrums and chirps underscored the fact that this was no standard hockey game, and Stutzle was proud of the way his teammates stood tall.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou see guys stepping up for each other,\u201d he said. \u201cWe had a lot of nail guns out there tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to assume the added chippiness was a bit of message-sending to their old pal, but Stutzle denied that was the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re playing our game,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s no message. We just play our game. It doesn\u2019t matter who we play. He\u2019s a really good player, we had to be really detailed against (the Panthers), they have a great team. I think it was just a whole team effort, that\u2019s the way we want to play. We\u2019re hard to play against and there doesn\u2019t need to be any messages. I think everybody respects each other and we just found a way to win tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

There might remain a shared respect on the ice, but it sure seemed to evaporate by the time you got to the stands. Granted, nobody expected anything warm and fuzzy around this reunion. Tkachuk\u2019s relationship to the team\u2019s supporters had clearly become strained by the time the situation resolved with his move south. Maybe the former teammates who dined with Tkachuk Tuesday night still cherish the good times they had, but in the with-us-or-against world of fandom, there\u2019s no room for nuance.<\/p>\n

Tkachuk stiff-armed the city, in the eyes of its sporting citizens, and on Wednesday night they wound up and slapped back.<\/p>\n

The booing began the moment the Panthers came out and knocked over a pile of pucks at the start of warm-ups and picked up any time Tkachuk was involved in, well, anything.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The chants were varied, incessant and ranged from R-rated to childish to downright creative.\u00a0\u00a0Every one of them \u2014\u00a0Matthew\u2019s bet-ter!;\u00a0You can’t read!; You eat crayons! \u2014 was imbued with a spiteful spirit Ottawa backers clearly believed appropriate for the occasion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI heard a few of them,\u201d Sanderson acknowledged after the game. \u201cI don\u2019t really have a comment about it, but yeah, I did hear them.\u201d<\/p>\n

No video tribute highlighting Tkachuk\u2019s humanitarian work in the community was going to divert fans from what they came to do, which was extract a pound of flesh \u2014 verbally, anyway \u2014 from a player they felt betrayed them. There even seemed to be an element of taunting when, in the second period, Sens fans heartily cheered another returning player, fourth-liner Lars Eller. Did the veteran Dane really make that big of an impression on Sens fans during his one season in Ottawa or was the crowd\u2019s loud response proof they would take any opportunity presented to let Tkachuk know they liked every person in the building more than him?<\/p>\n

Earlier in the day, Tkachuk said nothing he experienced from the fans would change the positive memories he has of the city but, goodness gracious, they sure did try.<\/p>\n

\u201cWere they ruthless?\u201d a seemingly unfazed Tkachuk asked with a certain coyness after the game. \u201cNo, it was good. Shows the passion they have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tkachuk finished the night with six penalty minutes \u2014 the same number as Matthew \u2014 as both brothers departed the ice early thanks to roughing calls from one final dust-up.<\/p>\n

Brady\u2019s exit from the ice gave the fans one more chance to pop, putting an exclamation mark on a night like few others in the history of the franchise.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny time you have a crowd like that, it\u2019s so much fun playing in front of them,\u201d Stutzle said. \u201cThey helped us a lot tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

And they sure had fun doing it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KANATA, Ont. \u2014 For years, Ottawa Senators fans watched Brady Tkachuk bring the fight to opponents. When he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":936643,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-936642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936642","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=936642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/936643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=936642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=936642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=936642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}