Ottawa Senators: Assessing Brady Tkachuk’s Contract Situation

With training camp right around the corner, all of Ottawa waits on the status of pending RFA and team leader Brady Tkachuk

The undisputed face of the franchise, Brady Tkachuk enters the middle of September without a contract in place, for both sides getting a contract done before the Senators enter training camp would be ideal. With a full training camp and a normal offseason, having the full team in Ottawa for training camp should be one of the main goals, if Tkachuk ends up sitting out for some portion of camp, it will create a distraction that this team doesn’t need at this point.

Continuity

There’s no doubt that when Pierre Dorion and the amateur scouting staff built this team they wanted to create a tight-knit locker room that has built chemistry through the pro, college, and junior ranks, hence the infatuation with the University of North Dakota. He’s got his best friend in Josh Norris, has built strong relationships with Thomas Chabot, Drake Batherson, Tim Stützle, and many others, if this situation of handled correctly there should be no hesitancy by Tkachuk’s side. There’s no doubting that Tkachuk loves the city of Ottawa, a team that took a chance on him at 4th overall to the chagrin of many pundits and fans, he’s now transformed himself into the Senators most beloved player, both on and off the ice. The match is perfect.

Now, entering his 3rd season under Head Coach D.J. Smith too, whose hard-nosed, competitive coaching style resonates perfectly with the type of play-style that Tkachuk brings on a nightly basis. With the way that Smith talks about Tkachuk, he expects the power-forward to be the primary catalyst for the team when they do put it all together:

"“He’s a guy that shows up every day. Even if your team maybe doesn’t have it, [he throws] a couple hits, he scores an ugly goal, [he’s] yelling at the other team — they drag you into the battle. And he’s a guy that’s going to help us turn this thing around.”"

Tkachuk has played nearly 200 games (198) in a Senators jersey, and while there has been plenty of doom and gloom, the team is quickly entering their ascent and there’s no way that the 21-year-old wouldn’t want to be there when the team starts winning. This is the guy you want leading your team, the organization needs to continue this rebuild around their franchise cornerstone.

The Captaincy

Now, this has been a divisive subject for many people in and around the Senators organization, when it really shouldn’t be. Brady Tkachuk is the captain of this team. Period.

The notion that having a player on a bridge contract denounces them from the captaincy is absolute lunacy, if the player is the captain, he’s the captain, regardless of contract status. This discussion easily could have been avoided if Eugene Melnyk didn’t make some controversial comments, where he scoffed at the idea of having a captain on a bridge deal.

“You can’t have a captain there on a bridge contract. It’s not gonna happen”

I know Melnyk is the owner of the team and all, but why should somebody who has little interaction within the locker room have a substantial say in who will be the “leader” of this team, it makes little sense. We’ve all known Melnyk to be a bit “trigger happy” in some of his takes, like early in the offseason when he said the team had a acquire a “top-line centre” and a “top-4 defenceman” when all the team has to show for it is journeyman NHLer Michael Del Zotto. However, it does sound pretty clear that if Tkachuk does sign a long-term contract he will be awarded the captaincy and some rumours point to an 8-year contract that includes an AAV of $8 million, while this is just conjecture at this point, that price should be enough to lock in Tkachuk.

If the Senators are smart, they’d do whatever it takes to avoid signing Tkachuk to a bridge deal and awarding the captaincy to someone else, which will cause a totally avoidable storyline that will in no way help the team progress forward. They need to transition into the next phase of their rebuild without any unnecessary drama, and a “C” on Brady Tkachuk’s chest.