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Should the Sens Trade Brady Tkachuk? A Mostly Unhinged Examination

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In which Varada seeds disinformation and erodes democratic values

So we’re doing this again.

The Senators get their first-round teeth kicked in, fail to meet the whole “these guys are built for the playoffs” mythology we’ve constructed around them, and a small but vocal corner of the internet looks at Brady Tkachuk’s contract, his brother’s Florida zip code, and his offseason house in New Jersey, and decides that the only logical path forward is to ship the captain out of town for parts. Every spring, the rest of us pour a beverage and try to talk them down.

I wrote on Bluesky that “You have to admit, Sens reporters and hockey podcasters repeatedly “reporting the news” that there’s speculation about Tkachuk without citing any sources except each other speculating about it isn’t just annoying and a distraction, it’s pretty unethical journalism.” 

And “The coach, GM, and player are straight up chastising journalists to their face for manufacturing news and the news story those journalists will run the next day will be headlined “trade speculation is only beginning.” It reads like a threat!” 

My opinion hasn’t changed. I strongly believe reporters whose job is to investigate and report are being lazy writing blog posts like the one I’m writing here. There is nothing to report. Am I being lazy by writing about this topic anyway? Yes! I am not a professional hockey reporter.

Let’s call this kind of post what it is: fun speculation. If you don’t find it fun to speculate, that is fair (and healthy). If you do, read on. But keep in mind that what this post does not contain is news.

So, with that caveat delivered, let’s engage with it. Pros. Cons. Trade packages. Therapy. The works.

The thing nobody wants to talk about: the window

Before we get to whether Ottawa should trade Brady, we need to establish why this conversation isn’t insane. It’s because of two contracts that look more ridiculous every time the salary cap goes up.

Tim Stützle is signed for $8.35M through 2030-31. He’s 24. Jake Sanderson is signed for $8.05M through 2032-33. He’s 23.

When Stützle signed his deal in 2022, his cap hit was 10% of the league cap. Next season, with the cap projected at $104M and rising, that same contract is going to eat about 8%. By the back half of the deal, he could be a top-line center taking up less cap space than your average second-pairing defenseman. Sanderson is on a similar trajectory.

This is the entire ballgame. Pierre Dorion, in between making moves that are still emotionally damaging Senators fans, accidentally signed two of the better long-term value contracts in the league. The challenge — the thing Steve Staios actually has to solve — is building a Cup contender around two stars whose deals are getting more team-friendly every July 1.

Tkachuk’s $8.2M is fine. It’s not the problem. And the $12M minimum he’ll get on his next deal is probably also “fine.” But “fine” is a relative concept when the players around him are “absurdly underpaid.”

Pros of trading Brady (the case for chaos)

1. Tkachuk has a no-movement clause and two years left. This is not a five-year runway. Trade him in 2027 and you’re trading a 28-year-old rental who controls his destination. Trade him this summer and you get something close to peak value for a player coming off five straight 30-goal seasons. Waiting is expensive.

2. The roster construction problem is real. Ottawa’s lineup right now: a top-six winger making $8.2M (Tkachuk), a top-line winger/center making $8.35M (Stützle), a #1 D making $8.05M (Sanderson), and the contracts you’ve seen handed out at every other position. There’s a version of this team where the Tkachuk dollars get redirected into a 2C, a real top-pairing right-shot defenseman, and depth scoring — and that team is structurally better than the one with Tkachuk on it.

3. A star winger is the least valuable kind of star. Capology 101: an $8M top-pair right-shot defenseman is a unicorn, an $8M top-line center is the cost of doing business, and an $8M winger is — politely — a luxury good. Tkachuk is an elite version of the cheapest position on the ice. The dollars do more work literally anywhere else on the roster, which is the entire reason this conversation exists.

4. The “is he the captain of a contender” question. Brady plays incredibly hard. He also takes penalties at a rate that would make a Bruin or a Flyer blush, and the playoffs have not exactly been a coronation. This is the most heretical pro on the list. We move on.

5. He’d presumably approve a destination he wants. The list of teams he’d say yes to is short, but every team on it has assets Ottawa actually needs. That’s leverage — small leverage, but leverage.

Cons of trading Brady (the case for not setting your own house on fire)

1. He is, by a wide margin, the best power forward Ottawa has produced since the Alfredsson era, and trying to replace 35-goal, 200-hit seasons is a fool’s errand. The math of trades like this is brutal: you almost always lose the deal in pure-talent terms and have to make it up on construction.

2. He’s not just “intangibles” good. He’s actually good. Brady has won everyone over with his compete level, his leadership, his attitude, and his ability to raise his game in high-pressure moments that are not the first round of the NHL playoffs. These are important, if occasionally overvalued, characteristics. But Brady’s underlying numbers are also, to use analytics terminology, “stupid.” I’m not sure how you replace this (per HockeyViz):

Tkachuk: 0.62 xGF/60 (+25%) / -0.08 xGA/60 (-3%)

McDavid: +0.57 X GF/60 (+23%) / -0.10 XGA/60 (-4%)

3. The optics in Ottawa would be apocalyptic. “We traded our captain to clear cap” is a sentence that ends GM careers in this market. Even if it’s the right hockey move, it requires the trade return to be visibly excellent on day one — not “in 18 months when the kid develops” excellent.

4. Tkachuk has an NMC and presumably likes Ottawa. This entire conversation is conditional on him being willing to leave. Every report so far suggests he isn’t. If you ask and he says no, you’ve just told your captain you tried to trade him. Have fun with that locker room.

5. The Stützle/Sanderson window thing cuts both ways. Yes, those contracts are great. They’re also great with Tkachuk on the roster. The window doesn’t open because you trade him; it opens because the other two are signed.

OK fine, what would the trade look like

Three scenarios, in decreasing order of “I would actually do this.”

The Florida thing

Sens get: Anton Lundell, Mackie Samoskevich, 2027 1st Panthers get: Brady Tkachuk

Lundell is 24, signed at $5M through 2029-30, and is exactly the 2C Ottawa hasn’t had since the invention of indoor plumbing. Samoskevich is a young top-six winger coming off his ELC. Brady gets to play with Matthew, signs an identical deal, and hopefully visibly declines on the same trajectory as his brother and an Atlantic division rival is crippled with $30 million worth of contracts tied up in two ineffective power forwards. Net cap impact: roughly a wash, depending on what Samoskevich signs for.

The Devils thing (a.k.a. “fix the right side”)

Sens get: Simon Nemec, Dougie Hamilton Devils get: Brady Tkachuk

This is the one that solves Ottawa’s actual structural problem. Nemec is 22, a former #2 overall, RFA, and a long-term answer on the right side of the blueline. Hamilton is 32, expensive, and not the future — but he’s a real top-four RHD for two years while Nemec develops, and the Devils have been openly trying to move him. Brady gets to commute home from his New Jersey house. The Sens fix two roster holes with one trade and finally have a top-four right side that doesn’t make you want to lie down.

The Rangers thing

Sens get: Alexis Lafrenière, Braden Schneider, 2027 1st Rangers get: Brady Tkachuk

Two 24-year-olds, both signable long term, one of whom is the right-shot defender Ottawa has been trying to acquire since the Harper administration. The downside is the cap math: Lafrenière at $7.45M plus Schneider’s next deal will probably push Ottawa $3-4M over what Tkachuk currently costs. (But not what he would cost after re-signing.) You’re betting on volume over a single star, which works only if you actually believe Lafrenière is about to break out. Some days I do. And it would be fun to have three picks from the top five in the 2020 NHL draft.

So, should they?

Probably not. Probably they keep him.

The honest read is that the only deal where Ottawa unambiguously wins is the New Jersey one, and that requires the Devils to part with both Nemec while shedding Hamilton and open up a massive hole on the right side of their defence corps. It can be done. It probably won’t be.

The Florida deal is the most fun/traumatic and the most likely to actually get agreed to despite the fact that both teams are in the Atlantic, but Lundell + Samoskevich + a pick is a lateral move, not an upgrade — you’re basically swapping star power for depth and praying the depth ages well. Now, if Florida were to offer their first round pick in this year’s draft (currently eighth overall), we’d really have a conversation…

The Rangers deal is the one Twitter wants and the one that costs Ottawa the most cap flexibility for the most uncertain return. This has shades of trading for Nikita Filatov and hoping he reaches his potential, which is a pretty unfair thing for me to say about Lafrenière.

The boring answer — keep Brady, find a 2C in free agency or via a smaller trade, or just keep working with Cozens to develop his defensive game, and ride the Stützle/Sanderson contracts into the next three seasons. The window is open because of those two deals, not because of any one move Staios might make this summer.

But if it’s July 14th and Brady walks into the GM’s office with a list of four teams, well…use promo code “WTYKY” for 20% off your first online therapy session with Sens Shrink.

Your Half-Assed 2025 Round 1 Preview: This Ain’t Your Daddy’s Battle of Ontario (Thank Christ)

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Hello, and welcome back to playoff hockey.

Folks, it’s been a minute. The last Half-Assed Playoff Previews I wrote in 2017 were some of my finest work, which basically perfectly predicted the dynamics at play of each series. In contrast, this playoff preview is going to double-down on the “half-assed” part of the title. Nevertheless, as this series is simply an irresistible tchotchke to rotate in my mind, I feel compelled to call this series purely in terms of balls and strikes. Check out WTYKY Voicemails if you want my feelings, I’m just doing science here.

5-on-5

In the red corner, here are the 5v5 results for YOUR Ottawa Senators this season:

Unless you are very new here, there should be little in this graph you find surprising. Chabot, Stützle, Tkachuk, and Zub are good. Zetterlund is good because he’s played a lot with Stützle, Giroux is kind of washed, Sanderson should be better except he’s spent a lot of time with Hamonic, etc. The main takeaway here is that Ottawa has very few weaknesses outside of their 3rd pairing, but HOOOOOOOO BOY what a weakness! It might be too early to make the Big Reveal about what I think is gonna happen in this series, but fuck it: if the Leafs find a way to regularly get their top 6 including Matthews, Marner, and Nylander in various permutations on the ice against a pairing with Tyler Kleven, Travis Hamonic, or both on it, the Sens are almost certainly cooked. Write it down, take a picture, send it to Coming In Hot, if the Sens lose, it’s gonna be because Hamonic and/or Kleven are implicated in several goals against. If Jensen is healthy enough to play and Matinpalo can float Kleven on the 3rd pairing, Ottawa might be able to put just enough duct tape over this massive hole in their 5v5 dry wall to see them into the next round, but I think the mismatch of Toronto’s top 6 vs. Ottawa’s bottom pair is going to be the main thing that decides the series, at least at 5v5.

Brady Tkachuk and Tim Stützle will do fine regardless of which matchup they get, and Ottawa’s 3rd line of Grieg-Pinto-Amadio will probably also do fine, which is why Toronto will be trying to find any other matchup they can possibly get for Matthews et. al.

Kauze 4 Konzern: what is Dylan Cozens doing over there so close to the “Bad” part of the graph? I don’t have any alarm bells going off when I watch him, but man, it sure would be nice if our 2nd line centre had better 5v5 results after a solid 20 games to find his legs with the Sens. Something to keep an eye on.

Meanwhile, in the blue corner:

I’m just here to call balls and strikes, so let’s call a strike right now: the Leafs are a very good top 6 forward cor(e/ps), one good 1st D-pairing, and a bunch of scrubs. Their big trade deadline acquisition of Scott Laughton stinks, their best young prospect, Nick Robertson, stinks, their toughest tough guy, Ryan Reaves, stinks, and their guy with an umlaut in his name David Kämpf also stinks. Tim Stützle is going to eat David Kämpf’s mittagessen in the Umlaut Name Battle. Even their Domi stinks. Fuck this team with extreme prejudice. No one outside of the guys I’ve heard of scares me even a little bit, and they shouldn’t scare you, or anyone on the Senators, either. The Sens are going to get 30 minutes each game where the Leafs have Frozen Dinner on the ice, and it will be up to them to make the most of that time. Dylan Cozens needs to find a way to go ham against “Bobby McMann”. Come on, buddy, I believe in you!

Special Teams

I’ll keep this brief: Toronto’s powerplay is very good, and Ottawa’s penalty killing is kind of shitty. I don’t think Ottawa’s going to be able to fix their entire PK in 36 hours, so my recommendation is that they simply take as few penalties as possible. Much like the Curious Case of Ottawa’s 3rd Defence Pairing, special teams represents another avenue through which the Sens hopes in the series might be killed off like Sean Bean in that movie or television show of your choice.

Goaltending

This one is genuinely interesting. In the red corner, while Linus Ullmark has certainly had his share of ups and downs, I think most Sens fans would describe his performance this season as quite satisfactory. Meanwhile in the blue corner, prior to my pre-playoffs investigation, I had assumed that Anthony Stolarz was a kind of Mid goaltender who was merely riding a hot streak. What I didn’t realize until recently was how hot that particular streak was. 75 GA per 100 xGA is a Hamburglar level of hotness. I don’t think that level of goaltending is sustainable, mostly because I don’t think Anthony Stolarz is comparable to Dominik Hasek in terms of goaltending ability, but is being as good as Linus Ullmark sustainable? It might be! It’s certainly sustainable for Linus Ullmark. Someone who is smarter about goaltending than me, someone with puck tracking data, or both, should investigate what’s going on with Anthony Stolarz because the possibility that Ottawa does not have the advantage in net in this series is a serious one. We’ll call this part of the matchup a toss-up, because I’m feeling optimistic, but if Toronto ends up with the best goalie in this series, I’ll be forced to conclude that it wasn’t really surprising.

Cool! It’s like nothing has changed in the past 20+ years!

Season Series

Throughout the regular season, Toronto has failed to convincingly outplay Ottawa except for when they trail and Ottawa does nothing but try to protect the lead. Also, Ottawa has only trailed Toronto for something like 7 minutes total in three games. I don’t think this proves that Ottawa has a significant advantage heading into the series, but it does make me feel better, and reduce the perceived likelihood that Toronto will dominate the series. In short: it will be up to Toronto to prove that the playoffs are different, because in the regular season Ottawa has handled the Leafs in a way that they could only dream of handling the powerhouses of Buffalo and Montreal.

X-Factor: Playoff Experience

Call it wish-casting, call it fan-fiction, call it a vision that was revealed to you in a dream, the fact of the matter is that while we all SAY that we KNOW that Brady, Timmy, Tommy, Sandy, and Ridly will be Playoff Gamers, we won’t know for certain until Sunday night. Will they be able to treat these games just like any other game even though they aren’t just any other game? Probably! But it could be a wild first 10 minutes. Hopefully the veterans like Giroux, Amadio, Jensen, and *makes gagging motion* Nick Cousins can help the younger guys calibrate the energy they need to bring. In the blue corner, Toronto has no shortage of playoff experience. All that experience is terrible, but they definitely have it. Take Auston Matthews, for instance. Auston Matthews already has 55 career playoff games under his belt, even though he’s only won a single playoff series since 2017. He’ll be the last guy on the ice who is going to act like he hasn’t been there before, because if there is one place he has been before, it is Round 1 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

So, what do? This is a true double-edged sword for both teams. If Ottawa can meet with triumph and disaster, treat those two imposters as just the same, and plant the seed of doubt in the fertile soil of the famously fragile Maple Leaf psyche, they could ride the momentum to a quick series win. On the other hand, the longer the Leafs are allowed to stay comfortable, the better it is for them. That’s why this is a true X-factor.

My recommendation: use a post-hoc rationalization to show that the eventual series result was inevitable the whole time.

The Wisdom

I don’t think Toronto has a lot of ways to win this series, but I think that Ottawa has a lot of ways to lose it. Getting their bottom D-pairing stuck in matchup hell, sending Toronto to the PP too many times, and getting too high on their own emotional supply while playing undisciplined hockey, are the three massive rakes that they must avoid stepping on to get past this eminently beatable Maple Leafs team. Luckily these rakes are highly visible and avoidable. Let’s not get it twisted, this Leafs team is deeply unimpressive, maybe the least impressive Leafs team since 2017, and they never would have won the division if they hadn’t been floated to an inflated record by a combination unsustainably strong goaltending and lucky record in one goal games. Ottawa should feel blessed to get the opportunity to face them in the first round as a wild card team.

And speaking of goaltending, there is admittedly an outside chance that Stolarz simply continues to be hotter than the surface of Venus, and that the Leafs will win this series no matter what Ottawa does. But here is my retort: that’s life! If you don’t want to risk losing because the other team had a hot goalie, then playoff hockey might not be for you. Ultimately, Ottawa’s superior top-to-bottom depth, boundless energy, and renowned players who already play with a “playoff style” (read: are extremely fucking irritating at an almost-spiritual level), combined with Toronto’s biblical levels of swaggerlessness and mental strength which is about as resilient as a gingerbread space station, all point to one most likely outcome for this series:

Senators in 6