Brady Tkachuk Scores on a First-Period Power Play in His First Game Back in Ottawa

Brady Tkachuk’s first game in Ottawa as a visitor went the way everyone in the building expected, and then it went Ottawa’s way. The former captain was booed in warmups, booed on his puck touches and booed through the video tribute the Senators played for him, and he still opened the scoring on a first-period power play. The Senators answered with five straight goals, Stutzle’s equalizer in the first period and two in each period after, to win 5-1 on a night that also took their starting goalie out of the game.

How was Tkachuk received in Ottawa?

Badly, from the first minute, and at a volume the coverage kept remarking on. TSN reports the boos started in warmups and followed every touch, and that fans cheered loudest early when Artem Zub put Tkachuk on the ice with a first-shift check. The Senators played a tribute video at the first television timeout; Sportsnet and The Canadian Press report the crowd drowned it out with profane chants while Tkachuk raised his stick, waved and grinned. The chants collected by reporters on the night included “Brady sucks”, “We don’t need you”, “Matthew’s better” and “You betrayed us”. Two season-ticket holders, Neil Kennelly and his son Nolan, wore Tkachuk jerseys with an X taped over the captain’s C, Nolan’s carrying the words “Wingmen is trash”, a reference to the podcast criticism that strained relations last season.

What did he do in the game?

He scored its first goal, on Florida’s first shot of the night. Zub’s tripping penalty put Florida on the power play midway through the first period, Matthew Tkachuk found his brother in front of the net, and Brady chipped it past Linus Ullmark, in TSN’s account. On the next faceoff, Ottawa’s Hayden Hodgson fought Florida’s Bokondji Imama, and Tkachuk later drew a scrum and two minutes in the box after exchanging words and shoves with Shane Pinto behind the goal. Stutzle tied the game before the intermission, and the rest of the night belonged to the home team: two Ottawa goals in the second period, two more in the third, the last a shorthanded goal by Stephen Halliday off a Stutzle assist. Tkachuk finished with the one goal. The goal also extended the run that had changed his Florida season: no points in his first five games, then 10 points in four, including the consecutive natural hat tricks covered in our report on Florida’s three straight natural hat tricks.

What happened to Linus Ullmark?

The night’s second story arrived with 16:25 left in the third period and Ottawa leading 3-1. TSN reports Ullmark extended his right pad to deflect a puck sliding toward the net, slumped over, was tended to by the training staff and was helped off the ice with an apparent lower-body injury. Samuel Ersson finished the game in relief. Ullmark had allowed one goal, Tkachuk’s, and came into the night with a 1.33 goals-against average and a .945 save percentage in seven starts, the strongest goaltending numbers in the league’s young season. Ottawa had already spent this month managing its blue line, as our report on Thomas Chabot’s injury and Jake Sanderson’s return covers, and it now waits on the one player it can least spare.

Why did Tkachuk leave Ottawa, in the end?

The short version is on the record. Tkachuk, drafted fourth overall in 2018, told the club he would not re-sign when his seven-year contract, signed in October 2021 and running through 2027-28, came due. On June 21, Ottawa traded him to Florida, where his brother Matthew plays, for three first-round picks and a 2027 second-round pick, per NHL.com. Owner Michael Andlauer suggested his father Keith and brother Matthew influenced the request; Tkachuk said the decision was 100 per cent his, and that the reasons would stay private between him and Staios. His Ottawa totals were 473 points in 581 games, with playoff appearances in 2025 and 2026 after seven years of missing.

What did he and his coach say before the game?

Tkachuk called the night a once-in-a-lifetime moment, a chance to say goodbye to the city where he spent eight seasons, and said his hoped-for legacy was blood, sweat and tears. Panthers coach Paul Maurice, asked how fans should receive him, told them to come however they feel: NHL.com quotes him answering “Bring the passion” and saying that is what pro sports is about. Tkachuk had dinner with former teammates on Tuesday, though he noted, when the subject of Stutzle came up, that he had not seen him: “I have a chef at home, so I didn’t go for dinner.”

What happens next for these two teams?

Ottawa took both points and the louder story, and lost its goalie doing it, so the next update that matters is Ullmark’s. Florida leaves with the reception it expected and a quiet night from the player who had been its hottest scorer, in a league week where Cole Caufield’s own hard night in Montreal and Nikita Kucherov tying Tampa Bay’s points record made the same point from different directions: October storylines are written by single nights, and this one belonged to the crowd as much as to either team.