{"id":399962,"date":"2026-01-10T22:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T22:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/399962\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T22:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T22:12:08","slug":"senators-players-denounce-linus-ullmark-speculation-its-extremely-disappointing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/399962\/","title":{"rendered":"Senators players denounce Linus Ullmark speculation: \u2018It\u2019s extremely disappointing\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

OTTAWA \u2014 Ottawa Senators captain Brady Tkachuk did not hold back Saturday when asked to address recent speculation about the team\u2019s No. 1 goaltender Linus Ullmark \u2014 away on personal leave since late December<\/a> \u2014 that prompted the team to release a statement on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think anybody\u2019s pretty happy about a narrative being spread like that,\u201d Tkachuk said. \u201cIt\u2019s OK for people to critique our on-ice performance. But when it gets into family, it\u2019s pretty f\u2014ing bulls\u2014. It\u2019s embarrassing that it got to the point that it did. And, yeah, I can tell you for free, I\u2019m not happy about it one bit.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just not true. It\u2019s a bulls\u2014 story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tkachuk\u2019s comments were the loudest from the Senators\u2019 dressing room Saturday morning, hours before the team\u2019s home game against the Florida Panthers. On Thursday, online speculation about Ullmark and his absence from the team prompted Senators general manager and president of hockey operations Steve Staios to release a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cLinus is away from our team for personal reasons, and he has the entire organization\u2019s support. We asked that people respect his privacy, but clearly that request was not heard by the lowest forms of trolls and sick people who scour the internet,\u201d Staios said. \u201cWe are disgusted that outside forces are attempting to disrupt our hockey club. This statement will put an end to the ridiculous speculation that spread online.\u201d<\/p>\n

Multiple players and head coach Travis Green appreciated Staios\u2019 statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s great what Steve did,\u201d Green said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really appreciate what Steve did there, standing up for the group,\u201d forward Tim St\u00fctzle said. \u201cWhat Linus is going through \u2014 there\u2019s obviously been what\u2019s been said on Twitter and everywhere on social media, is absolutely not true. We love him in this room.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a reason why when a player takes a personal leave of absence for reasons that they have to work on themselves,\u201d Senators forward David Perron said. \u201cThere\u2019s a certain privacy that has to be respected, and it wasn\u2019t respected. Especially when it\u2019s over false rumors. So, it\u2019s extremely disappointing.\u201d<\/p>\n

It remains unclear when Ullmark will return from his personal leave. The Senators are currently down to Leevi Meril\u00e4inen and Hunter Shepard on their active roster for goalies. But they recently signed goaltender James Reimer to a professional tryout contract with their American League affiliate in Belleville.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OTTAWA \u2014 Ottawa Senators captain Brady Tkachuk did not hold back Saturday when asked to address recent speculation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,1319,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-399962","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-ottawa-senators","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}