OTTAWA – Just three games into the Senators 2025-26 season, the team is preparing to be without captain Brady Tkachuk for a significant amount of time.

Senators head coach Travis Green said Tuesday that Tkachuk will miss at least four weeks, and possibly longer, as the team is still assessing the extent of the left winger’s injury. The team’s medical staff is exploring the possibility of surgery.

Tkachuk suffered the injury to his right arm during Ottawa’s afternoon game against the Nashville Predators on Monday. While the specifics aren’t known, it appeared to be Tkachuk’s hand or wrist that was injured.

“It’s unfortunate. You never want to lose a player. You never want to lose a player of his stature,” Green told the media on Tuesday. “That’s part of the game. We’re not going to sit and dwell on it. Like anyone else who gets hurt, you move on and you move on quickly. Brady will be around our team and be the captain that he is, but he won’t be playing.”

Tkachuk took a crosscheck near the boards a little over five minutes into the game from Predators defenceman Roman Josi, who was assessed a minor penalty. Tkachuk left the bench briefly and went to the Senators dressing room. He returned to the game but only played a total of 13:53. Last season, Tkachuk averaged 18:14 of ice time per game.

“It was an awkward fall,” observed teammate Drake Batherson. “Then [Tkachuk] was right back out there, so I didn’t think too much of it. Then obviously when he wasn’t playing those important minutes at the end of the game trying to tie it up, I figured something was up. Just waiting to hear and hoping he’s going to be okay.”

Tkachuk didn’t play a shift in the last nine minutes of the game. Ottawa went on to lose 4-1.

The Senators went 5-5 in the 10 games Tkachuk missed during the 2024-25 season. Two of those games were due to a hip injury he sustained after helping USA reach the finals of the 4 Nations Face-Off. The other eight were due to an upper-body injury later in the season. A number of players, including Fabian Zetterlund, David Perron, Adam Gaudette and Ridly Greig, filled in on the top line alongside Tim Stützle and Claude Giroux during his absence.

This season, Tkachuk has been on the left wing beside Stützle at centre and Zetterlund on the right wing. It’s unclear who will fill in for Tkachuk just three games into the season.

“Any time someone gets hurt it’s an opportunity for someone else,” Green noted. “We’ll see what lines we go with tomorrow. We’re still working on that as we came to the rink this morning to find out. Definitely someone else will get some more minutes.”

Batherson is expected to make his season debut for the Senators against Buffalo on Wednesday after dealing with an injury he suffered during training camp. The right winger will likely get more ice time with the gap in the lineup created by Tkachuk’s absence.

“[Tkachuk] is a big voice in this room and he leads by example too. We have a lot of older guys and guys who have been around who can step in and help out,” Batherson said. “At the end of the day, you can’t replace a player like that, but all you can do, every one of us just play a little better and try to take over for what we’re missing from him as much as we can.”

Tkachuk has already been named to Team USA’s Olympic roster and is expected to represent his country at the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Games.

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