Brady Tkachuk left the Ottawa Senators a month ago, and Wednesday night we finally learned how long the front office saw it coming.
General manager Steve Staios sat down with The Sick Podcast and admitted the split had been building for a long stretch.
"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," Staios said.
A year and a half is a long runway. That is like feeling a slow leak in a tire for months, you know something is wrong well before it finally goes flat.
Staios has run Ottawa's front office since November of 2023. This summer he traded away a forward who put up 59 points this past season.
That production came across 60 games, with 22 goals and 37 assists mixed in.
But his numbers cooled hard late in the year. Over his final five games, Tkachuk did not register a point and posted a minus-4 rating.
Panthers sit outside the league's upper tier with Tkachuk in the fold
Zoom out to his last 10 games and it reads a little better. Two goals, six assists, eight points overall.
If Staios saw this coming for a year and a half, why wait until after a rough finish to actually pull the trigger?
During that same stretch, Ottawa also swapped coaches, hiring Andrew Campbell back in December.
Ottawa still finished the year strong. The Senators closed at 44-27-11, good for 99 points and ninth overall.
Florida is a different story right now. The Panthers sit at 40-38-4, good for 84 points and 25th overall leaguewide.
General manager Bill Zito and head coach Paul Maurice inherited a proven scorer, but the results have not matched the name yet.
Handing a top producer to a club that finished 15 points behind the team he just left is a tough sell, whatever the reasoning behind it.
Florida won three of four meetings with Ottawa this season, taking a 6-3 decision back in March before dropping the finale 5-1.
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Whether that year and a half of tension becomes a footnote or the start of something bigger for both franchises will not get answered until puck drop this fall.
Did the Ottawa Senators make a mistake trading Brady Tkachuk to Florida?
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