The Ottawa Senators will have to right the ship without their captain.
Senators coach Travis Green didn’t provide an update on the status of top winger Brady Tkachuk on Thursday morning, but repeated that he wouldn’t be back anytime soon, with league executives confirming to Postmedia that the procedure took place on Thursday afternoon.
The normal recovery period from the type of surgery Tkachuk had on his right thumb is normally six to eight weeks, but the executives cautioned that hand injuries could be unpredictable. The Senators confirmed the surgery later in the day Thursday.
The team’s captain travelled to New York City to meet with hand surgeon Dr. Robert Hotchkiss on Wednesday to get a second opinion on whether the hand injury he suffered against the Nashville Predators in Monday’s 4-1 loss at the Canadian Tire Centre required a procedure.
League sources told Postmedia on Wednesday that the indications were that the meeting with Hotchkiss was to confirm that Tkachuk did need to have surgery after the initial diagnosis from the medical staff in Ottawa.
“I’d love to give you more information, but he is still being evaluated,” Green said as the Senators prepared to face the Seattle Kraken at home on Thursday night. “Like I said, he’s going to be out a significant amount of time.
“But we’re making sure that we’re taking care of him and that we do the right thing, and I don’t have an update. I’m hoping I do soon.”
Players are allowed to get a second opinion under the terms of the collective bargaining agreement between the NHL and the NHL Players’ Association.
The procedure shouldn’t affect Tkachuk’s participation with the United States at the Winter Olympic Games in February in Milan, Italy.
Coming off an 8-4 loss to the Buffalo Sabres on Wednesday on the road, the Senators made one roster move before facing the Kraken by recalling winger Arthur Kaliyev from their American Hockey League affiliate in Belleville.
Kaliyev, 24, posted two assists with Belleville on the weekend. He has good skills and was signed as an unrestricted free agent in the off-season. Among Ottawa’s last cuts following training camp, he was selected No. 53 overall by the Los Angeles Kings in the 2019 NHL draft.
He played for Senators owner Michael Andlauer and Steve Staios, Ottawa’s president of hockey operations and general manager, when they were running the Ontario Hockey League’s Hamilton Bulldogs.
Green didn’t commit to playing Kaliyev on Thursday, but there would be no point in bringing him up otherwise.
The reality is that, with Tkachuk out, the Senators must learn to win without him. They went 5-4-1 in the 10 games he missed last season and weren’t very good against the Sabres on Wednesday.
It didn’t help that they allowed four special-teams goals in the second period — including a shorthanded effort — to fall behind 5-2. They mounted a comeback, but then came apart at the seams in the third period.
The Senators have talked a lot about having a next-man-up approach. Let’s face it: They’re not the first team to lose a star player for a lengthy stretch and they won’t be the last.
“Every team faces some adversity during the season, right? We’re certainly we’re going to miss him. We’re going to be a way better team with him when he does come back,” veteran centre Lars Eller said.
“But good teams have the ability to lose a key player for some time and it’s a chance for some other guys to step up. Collectively, we’re good enough to find a way to win games. I really believe that because I’ve seen that in the past with plenty of teams, so there’s no doubt about that in my mind.
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“And we have to get used to being without Brady here for a couple of weeks, and we can do that now. That being said, we’re going to miss him. We’re going to miss his presence, and hopefully, he’ll be back sooner than later.”
Eller has spent most of his career in the Eastern Conference and he was asked to provide an example of a team facing the same adversity that the Senators are.
“I’ve seen it many times throughout my career. If I have to give you an example, playing against Pittsburgh many years where we had (Sidney) Crosby and (Evgeni) Malkin out for long periods of time, and they were still tough to play against,” Eller said.
“They were still finding ways to win. We have to have that belief in our identity that our team is not one player. Although he’s going to improve our team when he comes back, we can find a way to win games here.”