Brady Tkachuk is gone from Ottawa, and this morning the silence around his departure is deafening.
Not one Senators teammate has posted about it. Not a word, not a story, not a reaction.
The team's official account has not thanked him for his time in Ottawa either. For a player who wore the captain's letter, that's a remarkable void.
When a franchise cornerstone walks out the door and nobody says anything publicly, that usually means the exit was not clean. Departures from tight locker rooms get emotional send-offs. This one got nothing.
"Not a single teammate of Brady Tkachuk has posted about his departure.
Hell, the #Sens team account itself hasn't even thanked him for his time in Ottawa.
The silence truly speaks volumes. Makes sense when the “leader” quits on you. There isn't much left to say."
It's the hockey version of someone leaving a job and their colleagues not looking up from their desks.
The Senators finished 44-27-11 this past season, good for 99 points and ninth overall. Under GM Steve Staios and head coach Travis Green, this looked like a team on the rise.
Senators now face a leadership void with no obvious answer
Tim Stutzle put up 83 points in 80 games this season. He's the logical candidate to carry the franchise forward, but stepping into a captaincy left behind under these circumstances is a different kind of pressure than just producing.
Dylan Cozens added 59 points in 82 games. Drake Batherson put up 71. The offensive depth is real. The character question, right now, is not about stats.
Jake Sanderson finished at plus-16 on the blue line in 67 games. Thomas Chabot, by contrast, went minus-6 in the playoffs in four games. There are clearly internal tensions still unresolved on this roster.
What is confirmed, loudly, is that nobody in that building seems broken up about it.
That tells you something. Whether it tells the full story is the part Ottawa fans are going to spend the entire summer trying to figure out.
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Was Brady Tkachuk the right captain for the Ottawa Senators?
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