Did he? I don't think Stu and Brady will be out long-term. Cheapshoting Sens players isn't going to help the Habs out of the basement.
If anything it just ups the odds of a Sens player running one of the Habs small forwards next time they play.
One big dumb goon isn't really much of a deterent. Florida last year as an example. No enforcers. Just a lot of guys who play with a pack mentality. That's where actual team toughness comes from.
Maybe they won't be out long-term, but are they healthy? Stutzle played most of last season with a bum wrist and he was nowhere near as good as he needs to be because of it.
Tkachuk is clearly already battling something because this is the second pre-season game he's left due to injury. I'm sure he'll be in the lineup opening night, but how effective is he going to be? Remains to be seen.
I don't see Florida as a good comparable for the Senators. For starters, they have Jonah Gadjovich on their team and he can pretty much handle anybody in the modern NHL in a fight. He's stood in against the likes of Olivier, Deslauriers, Marcus Foligno, Garnet Hathaway, and Adam Lowry and more than held his own. We don't have anybody like that. Not to mention that a few of their top guys like Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Bennett can handle their own business. They had Ryan Lomberg. Even a guy like Niko Mikkola was a menace. They bullied us last season!
Ottawa has Brady Tkachuk and that's it. Whenever anything happens, it's his responsibility to deal with it because he knows he's the only one who can or will. It shouldn't be on him to go out and fight Arber Xhekaj, but it is. We can't have a 35 goal-scorer as our only response in these situations; it's only a matter of time until he gets hurt. The man needs backup.