Ottawa Senators: Is 2021 the year Brady Tkachuk becomes a star?
The Ottawa Senators need to optimize their offensive firestarter.
Matthew Tkachuk is one of the best forwards in the NHL.
Measuring in at 6-foot-2, 202 pounds, the pride of Scottsdale, Arizona is a big, fast, powerful left-handed winger with great vision and a lethal shot. Over the last two seasons, he’s amassed 138 regular-season points – the most of any player on a team loaded with offensive firepower – and looked every bit like the kind player a craft GM can build a contender around.
Even with a less than offensive-minded head coach ‘graduating’ from interim head coach to a full-on full-time role, the Calgary Flames are all but guaranteed to make the playoffs this season if for no other reason than the sheer willpower of players like Noah Hanifin, Elias Lindholm, Johnny Gaudreau, and Tkachuk.
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However, lost ever so slightly in ‘Tkachukmania’ is the fact that his younger brother, Brady Tkachuk, is also a member of the National Hockey League and a pretty gosh darn good forward in his own right too.
Measuring in at an inch taller but six pounds lighter than Matthew, Brady was actually more highly regarded coming into the league than his brother. A one year contributor at Boston University after high school, Brady was regarded in even higher esteem than his brother going into the 2018 NHL Draft and was selected two picks higher two years later at fourth overall by the Ottawa Senators.
Though he’s yet to put up a 60 point season as a pro, the younger Tkachuk has actually outperformed his brother through the first two years of his NHL career – scoring 45 points (22 goals and 23 assists) in 2018-19, and 44 points (21 goals and 23 assists) in 2019-20. If the seasons would have played out to its full 82-game length – or even one game longer – it’s entirely possible Tkachuk would have eclipsed his rookie year totals as a sophomore, but alas, that wasn’t meant to be.
No, while Brady took an incredibly early vacation from hockey back in March, his brother and the 36-27-7 Flames waited patiently for the season to resume so they could continue on with their winning ways into the playoffs. While I’m sure a first-round exit versus the eventual Stanley Cup runner-ups, the Dallas Stars, isn’t exactly how Calgary saw their season-ending, it was still a successful season none the less – not to mention one that proved that Matthew’s 2018-19 performances were no fluke.
But hey, that’s cool. Let Matthew Tkachuk garner all of the headlines and get all of the hype; that’s fine. If you aren’t a fan of the Ottowa Senators and aren’t familiar with Brady Tkachuk, you will be soon.
Now granted, the Senators probably aren’t going to be particularly good in 2021. Depending on how things shake out and whether or not the NHL’s proposed ‘Canada Division’ will be allowed to play out intradivision contests, the Senators will all but surely finish out the season with one of the worst records in the league and a very small playoff window if one exists at all. With that being said, after losing Anthony DuClair to the Florida Panthers in free agency (more on that here), the Senators are going to be relying on Tkachuk to generate points off the left side now more than ever before.
From his rookie to sophomore seasons, Tkachuk saw his shots on goal increase from 214 to 259 in a pair of identical 71 game sample sizes. That was by far the highest mark of any player on the Senators, with their next highest-volume shooter, Thomas Chabot, taking 73 fewer shots in the same number of games. With ex-Florida Panthers’ right-winger Evgenii Dadonov set to join D. J. Smith’s first line – fresh off a 25 goal season in Sunrise – the Senators’ top-line scoring might no longer be ‘get Tkachuk the puck and let him shoot it 3.6 times a game’.
As crazy as it may sound, lowering the younger Tkachuk’s shooting volume may actually improve his efficiency and get him into a shooting percentage more akin to his brother’s (13).
Next. Grading the Anthony Duclair addition which is win-win. dark
If Colin White can return to his 2018-19 form and give the Ottawa Senators a true ‘point guard’ in the middle of their offense, this very well may be the year Brady Tkachuk fully transforms himself from a high-volume scorer on a bad team to one of the better power forwards in the NHL – giving his brother a run for the money in the process. And if not? Well, the Senators will surely be picking near the top of the 2021 NHL Draft; maybe they can land their center of the future to pair up with Brady moving forward.