{"id":940652,"date":"2026-10-21T00:14:18","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T00:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/940652\/"},"modified":"2026-10-21T00:14:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T00:14:18","slug":"why-brady-tkachuks-return-to-ottawa-promises-to-be-emotionally-charged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/940652\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Brady Tkachuk’s return to Ottawa promises to be emotionally charged"},"content":{"rendered":"

OTTAWA \u2014 Brady Tkachuk<\/a>\u2019s finest moment as an Ottawa Senator may have doubled as his final great one with the club. <\/p>\n

It was in the immediate aftermath of a Game 4, overtime win against the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round of the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Following a Jake Sanderson goal that kept Ottawa alive in the series, Tkachuk glided across the ice in the middle of a delirious Canadian Tire Centre and exclaimed to the crowd, \u201cWe\u2019ll be back!\u201d It was a defiant declaration that, despite being down 3-1 in the series, the Sens would keep scrapping, their chesty captain personally guaranteeing the fight had only just begun.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, roughly 18 months after Tkachuk led the charge against the Leafs, the city of Ottawa is preparing for a return that figures to be even more emotionally charged than a playoff clash with their hated rivals.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Tkachuk \u2014 traded away in June \u2014 will play his first game in Ottawa as a member of the Florida Panthers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to be nervous,\u201d Tkachuk said from his new home after practice in South Florida on Monday. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be fun, a weird but cool experience, and yeah, I\u2019m looking forward to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are, of course, multiple layers to this engagement. On one level, you\u2019ve got a player coming back to face old teammates, many of whom remain friends. Yeah, they want to beat the guy, but they also went through the battles with him, to say nothing of the off-ice bonds that form in your 20s when you\u2019re part of a larger family.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I\u2019m going to see him tonight for dinner,\u201d Senators winger Drake Batherson said on Tuesday. \u201cIt\u2019ll be good to catch up.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Batherson, there\u2019s still an element of slappin\u2019 backs with an old buddy. Senators supporters, though, will be reacting with the raw emotion of being slapped in the face.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s simply how it feels to many fans, as people who have a big-time investment in these players and teams without any of it being tempered by personal relationships.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a black-and-white case of, \u201cThis guy didn\u2019t want us, now we can let him know how glad we are he\u2019s gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, this drama is just one vignette in a league-wide story about stars grabbing hold of their own fate and American players \u2014 at least, the ones good enough to be at the Olympics winning gold medals \u2014 wanting to play at home instead of on foreign soil.<\/p>\n

Poke at these narratives a bit and you\u2019ll be able to penetrate some of the superficial fluff. Detroit Red Wing Dylan Larkin, a Michigan native, is a Team USA member who wants out of his home state; Quinn Hughes, who plays for Team USA GM Bill Guerin in Minnesota, still won\u2019t rush down the aisles to sign a contract extension in the heartland of American hockey because \u2014 some theorize \u2014 a bigger priority is playing with his brothers down the line.<\/p>\n

And that fraternal theme is one worth remembering here, as Brady joined big brother Matthew on a championship-level team in Florida. You can say Brady \u2014 the son of American Hall of Famer Keith Tkachuk \u2014 stuck it to Ottawa and you might not be wrong. Still, the lure of playing with a best pal and brother on a team you can win with is a strong pull.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Remember, Tkachuk once committed to Ottawa by signing a seven-year deal to stay there in 2021. But that 2025 series against Toronto represented the first playoff games of Tkachuk\u2019s NHL tenure, as the Sens failed to make the post-season until seven years into his career. That\u2019s not going to sit well with any NHLer, let alone the chippy offspring of a power forward who\u2019s watched his sibling play deep into the spring on an annual basis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Brady may be bludgeoned with boos on Wednesday, but you don\u2019t have to be a complete apologist to see why he was wondering about a future somewhere else.<\/p>\n

Either way, you can\u2019t have a captain with one skate out the door and that\u2019s what it began to feel like with Tkachuk and the Sens last year.<\/p>\n

For all the talk of Americans not wanting to play in Canada, it\u2019s worth noting not every guy with a U.S. passport has the same bearing as the in-your-face Tkachuk boys. Just to the east of Ottawa, Americans Cole Caufield and Lane Hutson have eagerly signed up to be stars for the next decade in Montreal; to the south, Auston Matthews \u2014 despite being on a team with a less-than-clear path to glory \u2014 seems dedicated to making it work in Toronto.<\/p>\n

Just because Brady wanted out of Ottawa, that doesn\u2019t mean Sanderson \u2014 a superstar American and Sens defenceman who serves as a reminder that Tkachuk\u2019s departure was no death blow for the franchise \u2014 will follow suit.<\/p>\n

Tkachuk made good on his promise back in 2025, as the Senators forced another game in their building, one ultimately won by Toronto. That return, it goes without saying, was unsatisfying.<\/p>\n

This next one, however, is sure to prove therapeutic for agitated fans in Ottawa. Win or lose, they\u2019ll be able to unleash their pent-up feelings on a player who is no longer one of their own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OTTAWA \u2014 Brady Tkachuk\u2019s finest moment as an Ottawa Senator may have doubled as his final great one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":940653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194295],"tags":[49,48,20739],"class_list":["post-940652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-ottawa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=940652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/940653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=940652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=940652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=940652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}