After a season where wild rumours began to swirl around Brady Tkachuk’s future in Ottawa, both Tkachuk and his father, Keith, set the record straight this week.
When the New York Post reported that the New York Rangers had made Tkachuk their primary trade target last December, Senators GM Steve Staios didn't just dismiss it as rumour; he described it as “complete BS."
Team owner Michael Andlauer went even further, referring to it as “soft tampering."
At the time, Tkachuk was almost exactly at the mid-way point of his seven-year contract with the Sens. Earlier this week, in wide-ranging interviews with ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski, both Keith and Brady were asked about last year's New York chatter.
"I wouldn't believe everything you hear," Keith said. "I think after what happened with Matthew in Calgary, everyone just assumes that's going to happen with Brady [in Ottawa].
“But Brady loves it there… So I don't think he's going anywhere."
Asked about his father's comments this week, and whether the team’s postseason berth helped ease any outside doubts about his future in Bytown, Brady agreed that it helped.
"Yeah, I think we really needed to make the playoffs to show everybody that we're a team that's capable of that, but also capable of doing more than just making the playoffs,” Tkachuk said.
“The last couple of years, it was kind of stagnant. We had high expectations and we didn't quite accomplish what we needed to. And with that came doubt. But I think it showed with the steps that we took last year that we have a great hockey team. I think that we're kind of just getting started with what we want to accomplish. Playoffs are great to get to, but that's not our end goal. The sky's the limit for our group.
Tkachuk says the success helped deflate some of the wild speculation going around.
“When things aren't going well, people are always assuming or trying to think in my shoes. But I was never really in that thought process. It was all about sticking it out."
Tkachuk’s comments, along with his dad’s, paint a picture of a player fully invested in the future of the team he captains. For Sens fans who were getting twitchy, that’s some welcome reassurance.
You can read the full ESPN interview here.
By Steve Warne
@SteveWarneMedia
The Hockey News - Ottawa
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