June 21st, 2026 will now always be a day of infamy for Ottawa Senators fans: the day the team shockingly traded Captain Brady Tkachuk to the Florida Panthers for three 1st-round picks and a 2nd-round pick. The initial reaction was shock. How could a team trade its own captain in his prime for futures? Yet this brings up an awful lot of feelings for the fanbase: a star player opting to leave in the prime of their career to go somewhere else.
This has happened multiple times in the past for the Senators. One of the Senators' first stars, Alexei Yashin, opted to sit out an entire season because the Senators would not agree to his lofty contract demands. Yashin was famously traded the year he was brought back by the Senators for the Islanders' 2nd overall pick, which turned into Jason Spezza and Zdeno Chara.
Dany Heatley asked for a trade out of the blue around the time the Senators were one of the best teams in the league. Heatley declined a trade that would have sent him to Edmonton, and the final deal ultimately landed him in San Jose for Jonathan Cheechoo and Milan Michalek, who ended up having much more longevity than Heatley. This also led to Eugene Melnyk filing a legal motion against Heatley for refusing to go to Edmonton, which was settled four years later between the two parties.
The greatest Senator of all time, Daniel Alfredsson, was not re-signed by the Senators because Eugene Melnyk refused to sign him to the contract he wanted. “Alfie” was considered underpaid for much of his career, and it was suggested that General Manager Bryan Murray had told Alfredsson he would be offered a “blank cheque” for his next contract. At the time, Senators owner Eugene Melnyk balked at the number Alfredsson’s camp provided and refused to sign the captain. The move made even less sense when the Senators turned around and traded for Bobby Ryan.
The Senators named Jason Spezza captain after Alfredsson’s departure, despite Spezza being the target of Senators fans' vitriol for multiple seasons by that point. Spezza requested a trade a year after Alfie departed, and shortly after that he was moved to the Dallas Stars. The most notable piece of that trade was Nick Paul.
There were several other trades in between where Ottawa traded away its big-name players. Kyle Turris was traded to Nashville in a three-way trade for Matt Duchene, and Matt Duchene was traded the next year to Columbus.
Then came, arguably, the most difficult trade for Senators fans: the Erik Karlsson trade. For the better part of a season, questions came up multiple times regarding the future of Senators defenceman Karlsson. In January 2018, GM Pierre Dorion famously said, “Even Wayne Gretzky was traded.” Melnyk was a notable penny-pincher, and many times there was this “internal cap” that Ottawa had to play under. Karlsson was a criminally underpaid defenceman who deserved a new deal, and Melnyk refused to have that deal signed in Ottawa. The rest is ultimately history, as Karlsson was dealt to San Jose in a trade that essentially helped build the current Ottawa Senators roster, with the 2020 1st-round pick turning into Tim Stützle.
How could Senators fans forget the trading of the lifeblood of the darkest days of the Ottawa Senators, Mark Stone? It became abundantly clear that Mark Stone would not be re-signing in Ottawa after, once again, owner Eugene Melnyk refused Stone’s contract demands, which included signing bonuses. The writing was on the wall at that point, and Stone wanted out, which was a hard pill to swallow as he had developed some incredible chemistry with then-rookie Tkachuk. Stone was traded to the Vegas Golden Knights for pennies on the dollar, bringing back top prospect Erik Brännström, a roster player, and a 2nd-round pick. Pierre Dorion, after making the trade, called it “his proudest day as a general manager.”
Now we land on yesterday’s trade of Brady Tkachuk, the captain of the Ottawa Senators, seemingly traded out of the blue. However, as information began to leak out, it wasn’t as out of the blue as one might think. Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Citizen reported that General Manager Steve Staios went to visit Tkachuk in New Jersey to gauge his interest in re-signing in two years. The answer was enough to show Staios that his captain was not committed to the Senators’ future plans and that a trade needed to be made.
Brady submitted a list of four teams: the Carolina Hurricanes, the Vegas Golden Knights, the Florida Panthers, and the Minnesota Wild. A similar list was released just a few weeks prior by Detroit Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin. Quinn Hughes forced his way out of Vancouver earlier this season. There have also been rumours of Connor Hellebuyck requesting a trade from the Winnipeg Jets and this year’s Norris Trophy winner, Zach Werenski, potentially doing the same.
The silver lining for the Senators and their fanbase is this: there was nothing that could have been done to keep Tkachuk. The writing started to form on the wall after the Olympics. The cracks began to form in his play and, as has been reported, in the dressing room.
Brady Tkachuk trade is a total bomb but I’m told pressure was high on the @Senators to make it happen. Told by multiple sources the dressing room was not pushing for Brady to stay. That being said it’s still a gamble to trade him in the same division.
— Renaud Lavoie (@RLavoieTVA) June 21, 2026
Not only did this happen, but Tkachuk also has a podcast with his brother where they discuss happenings around the league. In one particular episode, the brothers had their father, Keith Tkachuk, on the show, where he made disparaging remarks about goaltender Linus Ullmark regarding his leave of absence.
At the end of the day, Tkachuk decided to use his no-movement clause, which is his right, to determine where he got to go, as it was most realistic that the only option for him was to go to Florida. The captain of the Ottawa Senators decided to cut bait, check out, and quit on his team.
In years past, fans could point to ownership or management for driving a player out of town when it had historically been so difficult to attract them. This time, however, when Brady was applauded, had his name chanted, and Senators fans continued to show him love, he decided he wanted to go play with his brother in another sandbox. That behaviour is seemingly the exact opposite of what a captain should do.
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