Brady Tkachuk hears full force of Senators fans in return to Ottawa

KANATA, Ontario -- The scenes played out on the video board, Brady Tkachuk putting on an Ottawa Senators jersey, playing with kids, visiting hospitals, hugging teammates, doing the worm. But the words that were supposed to go along with it, the narration, couldn’t be heard at Canadian Tire Centre on Wednesday night.

All that could be heard were the boos.

Tkachuk, meanwhile, lifted his stick to the crowd of people determined to show their dislike and disappointment, the disillusionment they had with the player who had played for their favorite team for eight years, captained it for five, until he decided that Ottawa was not a fit for him any longer.

He lifted his stick past the Florida Panthers logo on his chest, and he smiled, the grin stretching across his face, as current and former players gave him the traditional stick taps.

So how did he manage the emotions of the night, the feelings surrounding the return to a place he once called home, a franchise he once belonged to, a team he once led?

“It’s new,” Tkachuk said. “Those were my teammates not too long ago. New experience, once in a lifetime experience in that moment. So, just trying to have as much fun as I could.”

It wasn’t much. Not on this night.

Three minutes and six seconds after that video tribute, at 10:00 of the first period, nine seconds into a power play, Tkachuk would do what he had done so many times before at Canadian Tire Centre -- 113 in the regular season and two more in the playoffs, to be exact -- scoring, taking the puck from the right side of the net and flinging it past Linus Ullmark.

“Yeah, it felt nice, but at the end of the day it wasn’t the outcome that we wanted as a team,” he said.

It would be the first -- and only time -- the Panthers would score, as the Senators rode the wave of rage and emotion, the vicious crowd and the raised stakes to a win that coach Travis Green would call their “most complete” of the season, answering Tkachuk’s single goal with five of their own, for a 5-1 win on Wednesday.

Asked if he’d ever played a game like that one, with that much animosity toward a former teammate, Claude Giroux, veteran of 20 years and 1,355 NHL games, said, “Not that I remember. It was a unique game, for sure.”

“Very emotional game,” Shane Pinto said, after a game in which 15 penalties were taken by the Panthers and 13 by the Senators, including scrum after scrum involving one or both of the Tkachuks. “Obviously the fans were super in it, obviously like a playoff game. That was the most fun I think we’ve had in a while.”

Tkachuk had played the first eight seasons of his career for the Senators before telling the organization at the end of last season, with two years remaining on his contract, that he would not be re-signing at its end. They responded by trading him to the Panthers, where his brother plays, for a package of picks on June 21.

This game, the 10th of his tenure in Florida, marked his return, a chance for the fans to let out all the feelings, all the emotions that had built up as everything had gone sour over the past year.

“I didn’t expect it to be that much,” Ottawa defenseman Jake Sanderson said. “A little crazy, but we’ve got great fans. They’re passionate. They want to see our team do good and win. They brought the energy tonight.”

It was after Pinto’s goal, at 17:18 of the second period, to put the Senators up by two goals, that one of the many chants rang out at Canadian Tire Centre: “We don’t need you.”

The sentiment was at the heart of the message that the Senators -- and especially their fans -- seemed to want to deliver on Wednesday night.

It had all started right from the beginning, from the moment that Tkachuk took the ice for his return to Ottawa and Canadian Tire Centre, as he joined his teammates for warmupse, as he took shots on goal, as he stood briefly near the boards, the fans made their position clear. It was there as the boos that rained on his tribute video turned to raucous cheers for the welcome back message to Lars Eller, who had played a single season in Ottawa.

The chants were equally creative and numerous, ranging from the R-rated to the merely insulting.

“We don’t need you,” they chanted.

“Traitor,” they chanted.

“Little brother,” they chanted.

“You can’t read,” they chanted.

“You eat crayons,” they chanted.

“Brady’s balding,” they chanted.

“You’re a sellout,” they chanted.

“Timmy’s better,” they chanted.

“(Bleep) your podcast,” they chanted.

Every hit, every check, a rousing cheer.

Every step on the ice, every touch of the puck, a rousing boo.

It was, as a reporter noted after the game, fairly ruthless.

“Were they ruthless?” Brady Tkachuk asked back. “No, it was good. Shows the passion that they have. One chapter closed and, like I said, a new, exciting chapter that we’re living in. It was nice to be in front of this passionate fanbase.”

They weren’t the only passionate ones.

“We love it,” Pinto said. “I think it just shows what kind of passion this fanbase has. They’re going to have the backs of all of us. That was a special night, for everyone.”

It all harkened back to the words that Panthers coach Paul Maurice had said earlier that day, when asked how Senators fans should respond to Tkachuk.

“However they feel,” he said. “Like, that’s what this is all about. It’s OK. If you’re unhappy, come unhappy. If you loved watching him play, come love watching him play. If you’re jilted, be jilted. Bring the passion. Bring whatever it is that you feel. Don’t come mad because the guy beside you is mad or happy because the guy beside you is happy. That’s what hockey and pro sports is all about. Let it all fly. Go enjoy it.”

There was no question that, on Wednesday, that was exactly what the fans at Canadian Tire Centre did.

They brought the passion.

They let it all fly.