It’s never easy to lose a captain to a long-term injury, but for the Ottawa Senators, losing Brady Tkachuk means so much more than missing their best player. Tkachuk is the team’s heart and soul, refusing to back down from any challenge and wearing his heart on his sleeve whenever he steps onto the ice.
However, after an awkward fall against the Nashville Predators on Monday, it has been confirmed that Tkachuk will miss the next four weeks with a hand injury, and the Senators will need to find someone to fill his spot on the first line with Tim Stutzle and Fabian Zetterlund. While no one can replace Tkachuk, the Senators have a few options who could cover for him over the next month.
Drake Batherson
After missing most of the preseason and the team’s first three games, Drake Batherson is set to make his season debut on Wednesday against the Buffalo Sabres, and it couldn’t be better timed, as he’s easily one of the Senators’ best wingers. Last season, he finished second on the team with 26 goals and 68 points and often played alongside Tkachuk and Stutzle on the power play. With them and former Senator Josh Norris, the unit scored 22 goals in 127 minutes and put 109 shots on net, which works out to roughly a shot every minute and a goal every six.
Batherson also spent some time on Stutzle’s line with Claude Giroux on the other side, and that also worked out well. In 113 minutes, the line scored nine goals and allowed four while owning a 65 Corsi for percentage (CF%) at even strength. He even has experience playing with Stutzle and Zetterlund, spending just over nine minutes together last season. Although that line didn’t produce anything in their brief appearance, they were a strong possession team with a 68 CF%.
Batherson is easily the best choice to fill in for Tkachuk. He’s the most tenured player on the team behind Thomas Chabot and has experience playing with nearly every player on the roster and in every situation. He’s also proven that he can throw his weight around when needed, and last season, he was second in hits behind Tkachuk. It won’t be easy to come back after missing a significant chunk of time, but he has the pedigree to make it as smooth a transition as possible.
Ridly Greig
Ridly Greig is very good at what he does. He’s a fiery agitator who knows how to put the puck in the net. Last season, the 23-year-old put up a career-high 34 points and 138 hits while primarily playing on the third line with Shane Pinto and Michael Amadio. But, with Tkachuk out, maybe the Senators want to add a bit of a snarl to their top line by moving up Greig.
It’s not as strange as it sounds. Tkachuk, Greig, and Stutzle played together for nearly 70 minutes last season, and although they were scored on more than they scored, they were still a positive possession line. Greig also joined Stutzle and Batherson on the power play for about 18 minutes, which went very well – they scored every four and a half minutes on average. In the preseason, Greig briefly reunited with Stutzle and was one of Ottawa’s best players, scoring two points in two games and recording one of the team’s lowest expected goals-against counts.
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It’s not a perfect fit, as Greig is more undisciplined than Tkachuk and will take the odd bad penalty, but having a young player who plays a similar role to the Senators’ captain might be a perfect match. If Ottawa wants to try out some new combinations, this might be a good one to see if they can find some magic for a few games.
Claude Giroux
However, replacing Tkachuk might not be an option. On The Sick Podcast, host Alex Adams asked his guest, Senators’ play-by-play commentator Dean Brown, who could fill in for the captain on the top line. For Brown, however, the biggest issue is who can play with Stutzle.
“It is difficult for a new guy on that line to get used to playing with Tim Stutzle because Tim is so fast, so creative, and so unpredictable,” said Brown. “Those are some of the things that make him great, (but) it’s also some of the things that make him so hard to play with.”
If familiarity is necessary, the best fit is Claude Giroux. The oldest player on the team has seen pretty much everything over his 19-year career, including playing alongside Stutzle. In this year’s preseason, he was a more frequent face on the top line than Zetterlund and was the primary right winger beside Stutzle and Tkachuk in last season’s playoffs, playing over 580 minutes with Stutzle in the middle last season.
Much has been said about Giroux’s age, but Stutzle doesn’t see it. “This is probably the training camp he’s looked the strongest for me ever since he came to us,” Stutzle said on the Missin Curfew Podcast. “He just plays the game the right way; he gets it done every time he goes on the ice.” That’s high praise from one of the most dynamic young players in the game, and proof that he has the intelligence and conditioning to return to a spot on the top line, at least for a little while.
Senators Looking at Some Lineup Shuffles
While the Senators will have to shuffle their lines to accommodate Tkachuk’s extended absence, his impact is too great to be replaced by just one player, and the team will need to find new combinations that work. That might mean that Zetterlund moves back down to the second or third line, or Stutzle is moved back over to the wing and the red-hot Shane Pinto is brought up to the first line. Everything is on the table for the next month.
The one bright side is that Tkachuk is injured now and not later. “I would rather him be out for four weeks now than in March,” said The Hockey Writers’ Jacob Billington. “If this is going to happen, get it out of the way now.”
This early in the season, the Senators have time to adapt while Tkachuk heals. That’s much harder to do when the season is winding down. Tkachuk is a relatively healthy player, missing an average of four and a half games per season. The injury was a weird play and unlikely to happen again. That’s great news for Ottawa as they continue to push for a return to the playoffs again this season.
Line combination statistics from Dobber Line Combinations.
