At 25, Brady Tkachuk is already all over the Senators all-time leaders page. The Ottawa Senators crushed the Minnesota Wild 6-0 for their fourth straight victory on Saturday night. It was an especially satisfying win for the Senators because the game's main villain paid a heavy price. With the Senators up 3-0 midway through the second period, the Wild began to get frustrated and physical, with the ringleader being Wild forward Ryan Hartman. At one point, Hartman challenged Sens defenceman Travis Hamonic to a fight, but with a 3-0 lead, accepting the invitation would have been unwise. Why give an opponent the chance to energize his team by accepting a fight? So, in Hartman's mind, it seemed as though Hamonic's refusal gave him the green light to start going after the Senators' best player. Hartman later took a run at Tim Stützle, who responded by slashing him. It would have been offsetting minors, but Hartman was also called for diving. After the two had a lot of conversation in the penalty box, Hartman apparently decided to get even. With seconds left in the period, he lined up for a faceoff against Stützle. As the puck was dropped, Hartman didn’t even attempt to win the draw. He immediately took his hand off his stick, swung his right skate across the dot to knock Stützle off balance, and with his free arm, shoved him face-first to the ice with his full body weight behind him. With the second period now over, Hartman stood at the end of the bench, smiling in disbelief as the refs announced he'd been kicked out of the game. You can guarantee that his head coach, John Hynes, wasn't smiling, especially after the Sens came out in the third period and scored three times on the ensuing five-minute power play to put the game away. Too often in hockey, the villain doesn’t get his due. But in this case, Hartman paid a heavy price—one even stiffer than getting worked over in a fight. He had to look his teammates in the eyes as they came off the ice, knowing his dumb, selfish play was a huge part of why they got embarrassed 6-0. He let them down, fully removing any chance of a comeback, and on the ensuing power play, the Senators poured it on. And Hartman's punishment probably isn’t over. When it comes to sneaky plays off the faceoff like that, he’s definitely not a first-time offender. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlEyY1NGy_Q[/embed] Remarkably, the NHL department of player safety only hit him with a small fine for that, obviously giving him the benefit of the doubt at the time. Now that he's shown them up with another vicious play off the draw, there's not likely to be much mercy this time around. How many games will Hartman get? Leave us a note below in the comments and join the Hockey News' new fan forum, the Ottawa Senators Roundtable [https://rtb.thehockeynews.com/ottawa-senators]. And be sure to bookmark The Hockey News Ottawa [http://thn.com/ottawa] for more stories like this.
