Remember how a not insignificant portion of those same people dreamt of dealing him for Tkachuk because he's such a leader ('cuz he punchez stuff').
I like the Senators in general, but they are very prone to playing like an entitled, petulant, bully team with zero details. It must be ludicrously easy for a team with maturity and a system it trusts to decimate them piece by piece and watch them tantrum and ruin themselves and it feels like it's them taking on Tkachuk's persona.
Now, I'm not arguing he doesn't care. Nor am I arguing that he'll never figure it out. I suspect he'll get out of there, or they'll mature as a team and he'll have a J.T. Miller arc. But what he was showing wasn't really leadership, it was more like a bully having a tantrum.
reminds me of his dad back in the day. when he first came up and we faced him in the playoffs he looked like he had limitless potential as a future power forward with lethal motor.
but then when winnipeg/phoenix built around him as their leader, made him captain at like 21, chose him as the dude over selanne, that set the foundation for a pissy immature and ultimately me first team where established vets, including our coach, went to take late-career two year resort vacations.
look at roenick, unhinged warrior everywhere he ever went other than phoenix, where he wore flip flops and bermuda shorts everyday and was golfing by the time the second round started. look at tverdovsky, whose holdout tkachuk openly cheerleaded in the press, leading eventually to the khabibulin saga. those teams always had decent talent, even in the context of the mid-to-late 90s western conference arms races, but they took on daddy tkachuk’s personality and there was no there there.
licked my chops everytime we faced a keith tkachuk team. it always starts off with him puffing out his chest but you apply a little resistance and he starts taking dumb penalties and disappearing.
