Brady Tkachuk's exit didn't catch Steve Staios off guard. The Senators GM now says the warning signs showed up more than a year before the trade.
That changes the feel of this whole move in Ottawa. It wasn't just an offseason swing. It was a situation the front office had been reading for a long time.
Tkachuk was sent to the Panthers in one of the summer's biggest deals.
Florida landed the former Ottawa captain, while the Senators brought back the No. 9 and No. 25 picks in the 2026 draft, a conditional 2029 first-rounder, and a 2027 second-round pick.
Ottawa didn't sit on those assets for long either. The ninth overall pick was moved to San Jose for William Eklund, Kasper Halttunen, and Brandon Svoboda's signing rights.
"It became fairly clear to me as we were going through this that, over probably the last year and a half, where it seemed to me that it was moving in that direction"
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But the trade return isn't the only thing getting attention. Around the league, people noticed what didn't happen after Tkachuk was moved.
Unlike Josh Norris' departure earlier this offseason, there wasn't much public reaction from Senators teammates on social media. That silence only added more heat to questions about the locker room.
The silence around Brady Tkachuk says plenty
Elliotte Friedman added another layer to it.
“People said a few weeks there post-Olympics in Ottawa that it was crazy; the reaction was so intense,” Friedman said. “I think he was affected by it; I think the room got affected by it. One player just said, it was a lot.”
That lines up with what Staios admitted Wednesday. If the Senators saw this coming that far back, they were dealing with more than trade chatter. They were managing a growing issue around their captain.
Tkachuk had said after the playoff loss to Carolina that he was committed to Ottawa. Later reports pointed to a different outcome, with a fresh start and a chance to play with Matthew Tkachuk in Florida.
The story got even messier when false rumors involving Linus Ullmark spread online. The organization and players pushed back on those claims, but the noise around the team didn't go away.
Now the Senators move on with a reshaped roster. But Staios' admission makes one thing clear: this breakup had been building behind closed doors for a while.
Did the Senators wait too long to move Brady Tkachuk?
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