Brady Tkachuk is not happy with recent rumors suggesting he might be on his way out of Ottawa this summer.
Tkachuk, who missed the Senators’ Breakdown Day following the birth of his second child, was back in Ottawa on Wednesday to discuss the 2025-26 season and take questions from reporters. One of the major topics broached centered around his future, with recent reports indicating he might be involved in trade discussions during the offseason.
“I feel like I’ve answered this hundreds of times,” Tkachuk said. “I feel like I’ve never shown, I’ve never said, none of those things ever came out of my mouth. And quite honestly, it’s just getting frustrating. It’s becoming a distraction because I have been fully committed to this team, to the city. It’s just becoming a distraction, frustrating to deal with.”
Tkachuk, who owns a full no-movement clause, has two more seasons left on his contract with the Senators at an $8.2 million cap hit. He is slated to become an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2028. The 26-year-old winger has spent his entire eight-season career with the Senators after they drafted him fourth overall in the 2018 NHL Draft.
While Tkachuk may be frustrated with the talk surrounding him, the noise is only likely to increase until he signs a potential extension in Ottawa. With the two years remaining on his deal, Tkachuk and the Senators cannot begin talking about an extension until July 2027.
“I mean, honestly, I don’t really get why,” Tkachuk said. “It’s a consistent thing, and it’s happened so many times, personally, and it’s frustrating to have to answer to something that has never been spoken out of my mouth. Has never been spoken from the team’s mouth, but I just feel like I have to consistently answer to it, and it’s just frustrating.”
Ottawa has had little success as a team with Tkachuk and the rest of the club’s current core of stars, missing the playoffs from 2018 to 2024 and being dumped out of the first round in each of the last two years. Tkachuk, who had 59 points (22g, 37a) in 60 regular-season games this season, did not record a single point and was in the penalty box for 13 minutes as the Carolina Hurricanes recently swept the Senators.
“I don’t think anybody’s more frustrated with how everything went than me,” Tkachuk said. “At the end of the day, I didn’t play good enough. I tried doing everything in my power to get my game going to make an impact, and just felt like nothing was going, nothing was going in, nothing was going my way. I have to live with that.”
The Senators have most of the top pieces on their roster locked into contracts at least through next season. According to PuckPedia, they are slated to have $17.4 million in cap space this summer to try to add to their roster. Adding another big piece could help end the “distraction” that Tkachuk references.
