Brady Tkachuk: leaving Canada like his brother and father before him?

Jim Rutherford(TheAthletic and ESPN Radio St-Louis) dropped a (media) bombshell in the last few hours when he said he thought Brady Tkachuk was available…

Remember that Ryan Whitney (Spittin’ Chiclets) was the first to raise the possibility of the Sens trading their captain last February, and that Renaud Lavoie also raised the possibility of Brady Tkachuk leaving Ottawa a few days later.

Steve Staios may have denied any possibility of a trade involving the Senators’ captain, but it seems that this rumour simply doesn’t want to be rumoured.

Why is that? I’ve got a pretty good idea…

Matthew Tkachuk was drafted in the first round by the Flames, spent six seasons there… and left for Florida in a mega-trade involving Jonathan Huberdeau.

Keith Tkachuk was drafted in the first round by the Jets, spent five seasons there… and continued his adventure in Arizona. I know, the Jets franchise moved there, but the fact remains that Keith never returned to play for a Canadian team after that. He went to Atlanta and St. Louis, where he decided to settle his family.

Brady Tkachuk was drafted in the first round bythe Canadian Senators, where he spent six seasons… and his name has never been mentioned so often in trade rumours. Three’s the charm?

Maybe I’m crazy or borderline conspiratorial, hehe, but I really have the feeling that the Tkachuk family is getting tired of Canada. Just like Alex DeBrincat, Jeff Petry, Johnny Gaudreau, Pierre-Luc Dubois andso on.

Taxes, climate, healthcare, cost of living, language (in Quebec), roads, politics, fan pressure, omnipresent media: there can be many reasons for an athlete – often American by birth – to want to play in the U.S., not Canada.

Let’s hope Cole Caufield doesn’t have such a reflex one day. He’s been talking about the pressure of playing in Canada in public for some time now…

Except that, if I’m playing devil’s advocate, we know that,officially, Matthew Tkachuk said he decided to leave Calgary because he wanted a better chance of winning. Since then, he’s made it to the Stanley Cup Final and is currently in the Final Four with the Panthers. While the Flames have missed the playoffs twice.

And if Brady ends up leaving Ottawa, he’ll also say he wanted a better chance to win, which he should have if he leaves the Sens.

The new owner replaced Pierre Dorion – who worked his magic for a few years – with Steve Staios…

He preferred to hire Jacques Martin on an interim basis, rather than give the job to Patrick Roy…

He didn’t move forward with plans to relocate the team downtown…

And he’s just hired a unilingual English-speaking coach!

If I were Brady Tkachuk, I too might consider leaving this organization based in Canada’s capital!

Sens fans thought Eugene Melnyk’s death was going to get them out of their slump, but it may be even worse now! #BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor

The factremains that many players don’t want to play in Canada. They tell their agents, but they don’t say it in public. They don’t want to close doors for the future, if things aren’t going so well for them, and they don’t want to be enemy #1 in seven cities they’ll continue to visit with their American team. That’s understandable.

And we still have to come to the conclusion that a Canadian market will always be at a disadvantage compared to an American market. It’s no coincidence that Canadian teams haven’t won Stanley Cups in a long time…

Conclusion: the Habs will have to continue to treat their players very well, but they’ll also have to start winning games again and again if they want to attract AND keep excellent players in Montreal.

In gusto

– Matias Coccaro trained alone this morning.

– Raheem and Nathan will be available tomorrow against D.C.

– Will the Canadian national team show serious interest in Jules-Anthony Vilsaint over the next few months?