For a package of draft picks, the Senators sent 26-year-old winger Brady Tkachuk to Florida to play for his brother’s team.
The team made it official. In exchange for three first-round choices and one second-round selection, Ottawa is getting a lot.
See what left the building. This year, Tkachuk had an $8.2 million cap hit and recorded 59 points in 60 games at plus-4.
Steve Staios met with Tkachuk in New Jersey last month after the Sens believed the Tkachuk controversy had become a distraction following the Olympics and the 4 Nations.
There is nothing left to write about the landing location. Florida is already home to Matthew Tkachuk, who is 28 years old and has a contract worth $9.5 million. Currently, the siblings are teammates.
The official statement details precisely what Ottawa received in return.
The Senators did not respond to the tough argument.
Here’s where things become unpleasant for Ottawa. This is a legitimate haul, not a salary dump. A significant wager on quantity is three firsts.
But Tkachuk remained under the authority of his club for several years. The Sens traded a player they didn’t have to swap because you don’t give up that kind of package for a rent.
They weren’t the kind of team that demolishes things. Travis Green’s Ottawa team was ninth overall, a team with everything to gain.
The case is therefore straightforward. A distraction is a legitimate cause to start a difficult conversation, but it isn’t enough to justify shipping out a 26-year-old star who scores almost a point per game. That’s what contracts are for.
The counterpoint is fair, too. Picks are lottery tickets. Three of them in the first round can turn into stars, or into nothing, and you rarely replace a franchise winger in his prime with paper.
Here’s my read: I’d have made him play it out before folding. If “noise” is enough to move a player like this, every disgruntled star in the league just got a blueprint for forcing the door open.
That’s the part that should bother Ottawa fans. Not the return, the precedent.
So the bet is that a pile of futures beats a present-tense star. Whether three first-rounders ever match what Brady gives Florida, lined up next to his brother, is the question that’ll follow Staios around for years.
Ottawa got paid. Whether it got better is a different thing entirely.
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