{"id":400660,"date":"2026-01-11T01:48:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T01:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/400660\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T01:48:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T01:48:11","slug":"its-just-a-bulls-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/400660\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s just a bulls— story\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

OTTAWA \u2014 As he does on the ice, Brady Tkachuk<\/a> came to his teammate\u2019s defence off it.<\/p>\n

The Ottawa Senators<\/a> captain did not mince words Saturday morning when he addressed online rumours about the reason for goaltender Linus Ullmark<\/a>\u2019s personal leave, which had general manager Steve Staios<\/a> releasing a statement earlier in the week that referred to \u201ctrolls\u201d and \u201csick people\u201d as the source of the rumours.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think anybody\u2019s pretty happy about a narrative being spread like that,\u201d Tkachuk said. \u201cIt\u2019s OK for people to critique our on-ice performance, but when it gets into family it\u2019s pretty f-ing bullshit. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s embarrassing that it got to the point that it did. I can tell you for free I\u2019m not happy about it one bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Senators announced Dec. 28 that Ullmark was taking a leave of absence. The club has gone 2-4-0 in his absence, was outscored 24-15 in that span, and ranked second-last in the NHL\u2019s Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n

The Senators were to host the Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers<\/a> on Saturday night after two losses on the road that included an 8-2 thumping by the Colorado Avalanche<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Saturday morning\u2019s skate was the first time players spoke to local media about the online speculation and Staios\u2019s statement two days earlier.<\/p>\n

\u201cLinus is away from out team for personal reasons, and he has the entire organization\u2019s support,\u201d the GM said in that statement. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe asked that people respect his privacy, but clearly that request was not heard by the lowest forms of trolls and sick people who scour the internet. We are disgusted that outside forces are attempting to disrupt our hockey club. This statement will put an end to the ridiculous speculation spread online.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tkachuk appreciated Staios\u2019s strong words.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was great to see him defend us,\u2019 said Tkachuk. \u201dIt\u2019s a crazy story that I don\u2019t even know who would in their right mind would come up with.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s just how it is in our society and life now that people can just say whatever they want and no repercussions and don\u2019t really realize who it affects.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senators centre Tim St\u00fctzle<\/a> said the team supports Ullmark.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to say I really appreciate what Steve did there, kind of standing up for the group,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat Linus is going through . . . what\u2019s been said on Twitter and everyone\u2019s social media is absolutely not true. We love him in this room, and there\u2019s nothing that happened and, yeah, we have the full support for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senators head coach Travis Green<\/a> echoed his players\u2019 sentiments.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great what Steve did,\u201d Green said. \u201cYou\u2019re talking about a player that\u2019s going through something that\u2019s personal. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think people understand how that can affect a person. And one thing about it is we\u2019re a team, whether it\u2019s ownership, management, coaches, players that care for each other and want the best for each other and support each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Friday, the Senators announced the signing of 37-year-old goalie James Reimer<\/a> to an American Hockey League professional tryout with the Belleville Senators. <\/p>\n

Green called the signing a depth move. It remains to be seen if he will join the NHL club at some point.<\/p>\n

Leevi Merilainen has carried the bulk of the workload in Ullmark\u2019s absence and was to start against the Panthers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re grinding right now and the only way we\u2019re gonna get out of it is with each other, positivity and an opportunity to grind out a big win tonight,\u201d said Tkachuk.<\/p>\n

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 10, 2026.<\/p>\n

Lisa Wallace, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OTTAWA \u2014 As he does on the ice, Brady Tkachuk came to his teammate\u2019s defence off it. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400661,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4759,5,4,33540],"class_list":{"0":"post-400660","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-ottawa-senators-sports-hockey-team-team-nhl-api-9"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115873952817977546","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}