Friday Four: Senators squandering Brady Tkachuk's prime

The Friday Four is a collection of thoughts and information on some intriguing player storylines around the NHL. On deck this week are the following:

Brady Tkachuk, Ottawa Senators

There’s always a lot of noise surrounding Brady Tkachuk. 

That’s certainly the case regarding his play on the ice. Tkachuk is a no-nonsense player who brings the physicality every shift, and it’s impossible not to notice him. Lately, though, there has been more noise around Tkachuk off the ice than on it. 

The Senators captain’s name surfaced in trade rumours this week, as a report out of New York indicated the Rangers would be interested in Tkachuk as a trade target. This isn’t exactly earth-shattering news, as there are 31 other teams you could say the same about. Who wouldn’t want Tkachuk on their team? Nevertheless, Sens owner Michael Andlauer wasn’t pleased and threw out the phrase “soft-tampering”, while reiterating there has never been any discussions about Tkachuk not being a Senator. 

For his part, Tkachuk echoed Andlauer’s comments, stating his commitment to the organization and that he wants to be in Ottawa. There is no reason to believe what Tkachuk is saying isn’t true, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t frustrated with the situation. He’ll turn 26 next year and hasn’t even sniffed the playoffs in his six seasons. Now in his seventh year, the Sens remain inconsistent, sit 12^th in the Eastern Conference and will have an uphill battle to break a seven-year postseason drought. 

It's hard to put much blame on Tkachuk for Ottawa’s shortcomings. He plays his heart out every night and is coming off three straight 30-plus goal seasons. Tkachuk is a prototypical power forward and has a skillset very few others possess. This season could even be his best one yet, as he’s notched 31 points in 28 games, pacing for a career-high 91 in 2024-25. 

To be fair to the Senators, they have put some good pieces around the Tkachuk. Tim Stutzle looks like he’s going to be a star, Jake Sanderson should anchor the blue line for years to come, Drake Batherson has emerged as a consistent scorer, and Josh Norris has plenty of upside. That said, the organization still lacks in some areas and stability has been a huge problem. 

Travis Green is already Tkachuk’s fifth head coach. Steve Staois is his second general manager, and the team doesn’t look any different under this new regime, as many of the same problems continue to plague them. 

The most challenging thing for this franchise in Tkachuk’s tenure has been goaltending. Last season, the Sens ranked dead last in save percentage and 28th in goals against average despite investing heavily in the position before the season. They signed Joonas Korpisalo to a five-year, $20M deal that could go down as one of the worst contracts in team history. 

Korpisalo lasted all of one season before being shipped to the Boston Bruins in the latest attempt to solidify the crease. Former Vezina winner Linus Ullmark was the prize coming back the other way, and Ottawa promptly signed him to a four-year extension with an $8.25M AAV, with little return on their investment so far. Ullmark has been much better in December, but he had a rough first two months of the season and is still sporting a save percentage of just .903 on the year. Ottawa currently ranks 21st in goals against and 25th in team save percentage, which is not exactly a huge improvement. 

It would be unfair to put all the issues on the goaltending, though. The defense isn’t very deep and you would have a hard time arguing that it stacks up when compared to most other teams that are going to be playing in the spring. Sanderson is a great piece but still needs time to develop, and some of the other blue liners they lean on simply haven’t been able to stay in the lineup. Thomas Chabot hasn’t played 70 games since the 2019-20 season, and Artem Zub, who is currently injured, has only hit that mark once in his career.

The Sens also shipped Jakob Chychrun out this past summer and probably didn’t get enough back. Nick Jensen and a third-round pick isn’t horrible, but Chychrun has eight goals this season and is well on his way to the fourth double-digit goal campaign of his career. That’s great production from a defenseman and something the Senators could definitely use. Maybe Chychrun didn’t want to sign in Ottawa long term, but you’d have to think they could’ve got more for him or even used Chychrun’s services this year to try and get the team back to the playoffs. 

It's a shame we haven’t been able to watch a player of Tkachuk’s talents in the playoffs yet. One Tkachuk brother, though, has had a featured role in the playoffs for the past two seasons. Matthew has gone to back-to-back Cup Finals and captured a championship after being traded to the Florida Panthers from the Calgary Flames.

Tkachuk didn’t want to sign with the Flames long-term and desired a different market, leaving Calgary little choice but to move him. Brady has been a loyal cheerleader to Matthew over the past two post-seasons and played a supporting role to the Panthers star in the Amazon series Faceoff: Inside the NHL, but you have to think Brady yearns for his own moment in the spotlight. Any competitor would. I’m sure he’d like to be a star on both the reality series and, even more importantly, during a deep postseason run. 

There was substantial pressure heading into the season on a handful of teams from the Atlantic Division to make the playoffs. The Montreal Canadiens probably had the least, but fans still hoped they’d be much better than they’ve shown. Buffalo and Detroit have both been massive disappointments, and big changes could be coming to those teams soon. The Sens have quieted the noise somewhat, but make no mistake, the pressure is still on to deliver some tangible results in 2024-25. Right now, Tkachuk and the team are saying all the right things, yet if the Sens miss the playoffs again, how much longer will he be patient? 

Out of all those teams, Ottawa may have the most to lose. 

Adam Fox, New York Rangers

There has been plenty of blame to go around for the New York Rangers' struggles this season, and most of it is justified. 

The Rangers have lost eight of their past 11 games and are giving up a ton in the defensive zone. New York sits 29^th in shots allowed per game. Only Pittsburgh, Anaheim and San Jose are worse. They also rank 30^th in high-danger chances allowed and pretty much made Igor Shesterkin’s argument for him over the past few weeks in regards to why he deserves a massive contract. 

Jacob Trouba was shipped out of town as his play has declined, and Mika Zibanejad has been a frequent target of criticism all year. His brutal turnover and subsequent wandering around the defensive zone that led to the lowly Chicago Blackhawks defeating the Rangers on Monday was a new low.

One player that is also contributing to the Rangers' downfall is Adam Fox. It was only a few seasons ago that Fox won a Norris trophy, and now he isn’t even in the conversation anymore. The Rangers blueliner scored 17 goals last season and has been a big contributor offensively for New York for years. Fox went 43 games without a goal dating back to last year’s playoffs before finally scoring into an empty net Wednesday. He still has 24 assists in 28 games, though there’s no doubt the Rangers miss his goals. New York has fallen out of the top in goals for this season after ranking seventh overall last year. 

What’s even more concerning is that the Rangers are putting Fox in the best possible situations to create offence, and he still isn’t scoring. He’s averaging almost three minutes per game on the power play and starting nearly 66 per cent of his shifts in the offensive zone. That’s up 3 per cent from last season and up close to 8 per cent from his career average. 

Fox could also be doing a better job of managing the puck, too. He’s already at 27 turnovers on the year, after only registering 33 last season. At this pace, Fox would finish with more than 80 turnovers in 2024-25, easily a career worst. This is undoubtedly contributing to Fox's plus-3 rating this season. That doesn’t sound awful in a vacuum, but when you consider Fox was a career plus-108 heading into the year, and he’s never finished below plus-18 in any season, it’s clear his defensive game is slipping. 

It’s brutal timing for the Rangers to have Fox’s game heading in the wrong direction, as the blue line is as thin as it’s been in quite some time. Say what you will about Trouba’s play and salary, but someone will have to replace the 20 minutes he was averaging per night. You can only ask so much of Zac Jones and Victor Mancini, who make up the third pair. K’Andre Miller and Ryan Lindgren have also had some consistency issues this season, and Braden Schneider, the most likely to see a bump in minutes with Trouba gone, is still only 23. 

The pressure is clearly on Fox to step up his game and get back to being considered one of the top defensemen in the league. He’s never going to be a stout defender in his own end, but Fox has to find a way to be more dominant at the other end of the ice. The Rangers may not be able to fix all their defensive issues in the season, and a game plan of having Shesterkin bail you out constantly isn’t sustainable, so sometimes, the best defence is a good offence. Fox can be a catalyst for this mantra when he’s at his best. 

Quinton Byfield, Los Angeles Kings

It’s not easy playing centre in the NHL.

Just ask Quinton Byfield, who’s making the adjustment this season and learning to play down the middle of the ice in the world’s best league. It was supposed to be a breakout season for the former second-overall pick, but things haven’t exactly gone as planned. Byfield is on pace for a measly 31 points, a far cry from the 55 he put up last season and the potential he’s shown. 

Part of that is due to the players around him. Byfield has had multiple different linemates throughout the season, though nothing close to the talent he skated with in 2023-24. Byfield played wing next to Anze Kopitar and Adrian Kempe, two of the Kings most potent offensive players. Kopitar is also one of the best defensive forwards in the game as well, helping to take some of the pressure off a young player like Byfield in his own zone. 

Currently, though, Byfield is centering Warren Foegele and Tanner Jeannot. No offence to those two, but that’s a massive drop-off from Kopitar and Kempe. It’s going to be a lot tougher for Byfield to generate offence at even strength next to Foegele and Jeannot, so unless he gets moved back to wing on that top line, expect his points to be few and far between. 

To counteract this, Byfield will have to take advantage of top power play time to find the scoresheet. However, the Kings have the 28th-ranked power play, so it’s hard to imagine Byfield cashing in on the man advantage with any regularity. 

The other glaring thing about Byfield’s game this season is his shot volume. It’s dropped significantly from last year, and before Tuesday night, Byfield went 12 straight games where he posted one shot or less. Part of that is correlated to the move to centre, where you have more defensive responsibilities and have to play higher up in the offensive zone. The further away you are from the net, the fewer opportunities there are for high-danger shots. 

I don’t think there should be any major concerns about Byfield’s long-term development. The adjustment to centre is challenging and it’s simply going to take some time for him to figure it out. If you’re looking at the glass half full, Byfield is getting more ice time this season and as he gets more comfortable at centre the points will come. 

It just may not be this season. 

Shane Wright, Seattle Kraken

It’s been a long journey for Shane Wright. Or at least it must have felt that way for the Seattle Kraken forward. 

In reality, it’s only been about two and a half years since Wright went from first-round selection to full-time NHLer, but a lot has happened along the way. The 20-year-old’s entrance into the NHL didn’t exactly go as planned. Wright was pegged by many to be the first-overall selection in the 2022 NHL Draft, though he ended up going fourth after falling down the board.

It wasn’t a massive slide, but it seemed like an eternity as Wright sat there waiting while multiple teams passed on him. Expecting to be taken as the top pick by a storied franchise just down the road from where you played junior, to then being selected fourth by a franchise heading into its second year of existence, had to be at least a little jarring for Wright. 

The prospect needed some time to develop and his first year in the Kraken organization was anything but stable. He played eight games for Seattle, eight games in the AHL and 20 games in the OHL with the Windsor Spitfires after the Kingston Frontenacs traded him. There was also a trip to the World Junior Hockey Championship for Canada sandwiched in there, too. 

In 2023-24, Wright found stability with the Coachella Valley Firebirds, the Kraken’s AHL affiliate. He essentially played a full season in the minors and notched an impressive 47 points in 59 games. Most importantly for Wright, he had back-to-back runs to the Calder Cup finals, experiences that will be invaluable as he tries to make his mark on the NHL. 

Wright entered his first full season with the Kraken in a great spot. Seattle head coach Dan Bylsma and assistant Jessica Campbell both were promoted from Coachella Valley, giving him continuity most young players don’t get the luxury of having. He has seven goals thus far, including a recent three-game goal streak and five multi-point games this year. Wright has settled on a solid line with Eeli Tolvanen and Oliver Bjorkstrand, trying to navigate the centre position in-between two veterans. 

It hasn’t all been smooth sailing for Wright in 2024-25, though. He was healthy scratched at one point, he isn’t playing in the top six and is averaging less than 13 minutes per game. Still, Wright is carving out a decent role with the Kraken and looks like he’s only scratching the surface of his abilities. There’s a lot of optimism Wright will become an impact player in this league and Seattle is going to benefit for having him fall into their lap.