Senators get concerning warning on Brady Tkachuk trade

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Senators get concerning warning on Brady Tkachuk trade originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

The offseason of trade rumors out of Ontario, Canada is coming quickly.

The Ottawa Senators and Brady Tkachuk, and the Toronto Maple Leafs and Auston Matthews, will have lots of attention on them.

Both teams made the playoffs a year ago and looked like they could build on that this season.

Instead, both have had nightmare campaigns, bad enough that people are wondering whether they should trade their stars to start fresh.

Daily Faceoff's Anthony Di Marco addressed this as part of a new article on Friday, and his thoughts should be more concerning to fans of the Senators as far as how he views Tkachuk's chances of sticking around.

"Speculatively speaking, the Ottawa Senators’ feet are probably closer to the fire in having to move Tkachuk based on the off-ice drama that has gone on this year and his brother’s decision to exit stage left from the Calgary Flames four summers ago," Di Marco writes. "Matthews’ situation feels far more up in the air and might be determined by the Leafs’ hiring decision on their next GM."

Obviously, none of these situations are ideal. Teams with a superstar leading the charge would rather win than be mired in offseason conjecture and speculation.

But sometimes, things don't work out well, and it's up to an organization to decide if it's a blip or a trend.

Ottawa and/or Toronto could decide that this season isn't representative of their future and continue to build around their top players.

They could also determine that this is a problematic setup and change the whole ting up.

In this case, based on Di Marco's thoughts, it seems like Tkachuk is closer to an exit from the Senators than Matthews is from the Leafs. If you're an Ottawa fan who still is fond of Tkachuk, that's not what you want to hear.

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