{"id":506856,"date":"2026-03-16T23:13:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T23:13:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/506856\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T23:13:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T23:13:16","slug":"senators-brady-tkachuk-says-leafs-should-have-stepped-up-after-auston-matthews-was-injured","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/506856\/","title":{"rendered":"Senators’ Brady Tkachuk says Leafs should have stepped up after Auston Matthews was injured"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Battle of Ontario has taken a strange twist.<\/p>\n

Ottawa Senators captain Brady Tkachuk<\/a> stood up for Auston Matthews, his counterpart for the Toronto Maple Leafs, after he had his season ended last week by an ugly hit by Anaheim Ducks<\/a> defenceman Radko Gudas.<\/p>\n

While Gudas was given a five-game suspension by the NHL\u2019s department of player safety, Tkachuk entered the debate regarding Matthews\u2019 Leafs teammates\u2019 lack of reaction on Thursday night in Toronto.<\/p>\n

Matthews, who suffered a knee injury, had to be helped off the ice, and nobody on the Leafs opted to at least challenge Gudas to a fight. Speaking on the weekly Wingmen Podcast he does with his brother, Matthew, Tkachuk stated if that happened in Ottawa, he wouldn\u2019t be the least bit pleased.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why I\u2019m happy I\u2019m not the leader of player safety, because it feels like what decision you make, somebody\u2019s going to be upset,\u201d Tkachuk said on the preview of this week\u2019s podcast that was posted on X on Monday.<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

\u2018Your captain gets taken out like that, I mean, gotta have a way better response,\u2019 said Ottawa Senators captain Brady Tkachuk, referring to the Toronto Maple Leafs\u2019 response after Auston Matthews was injured on an ugly hit by Anaheim Ducks defenceman Radko Gudas.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf somebody is going to do that and stuff like that, I feel like a lot of that is just you\u2019ve got to police it yourselves during the game. And during that play, your captain gets taken out like that, I mean, gotta have a way better response. Personally, I know how I\u2019d feel if I got hit like that and nobody really jumped in there, I\u2019d be pretty pissed. I love the way Auston plays.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tkachuk was a teammate with Matthews on Team USA at the Winter Games in Italy last month and won a gold medal<\/a>. They have always been friends and respect each other.<\/p>\n

The Leafs took a lot of heat for not reacting to the hit by Gudas.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been in that position before,\u201d Tkachuk added. \u201cYou\u2019re pissed off you\u2019re in that spot and you have that natural anger, and you want to take it out. That was the perfect opportunity to stand up for your captain \u2026 just didn\u2019t see it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Senators host the Leafs on Saturday night at the Canadian Tire Centre, so this should make for an interesting backdrop.<\/p>\n

bgarrioch@postmedia.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Battle of Ontario has taken a strange twist. Ottawa Senators captain Brady Tkachuk stood up for Auston…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":506857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5106],"tags":[233,532,536,5,20,5172,4,25,9464,66,31,5171],"class_list":{"0":"post-506856","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto-maple-leafs","8":"tag-anaheim-ducks","9":"tag-auston-matthews","10":"tag-brady-tkachuk","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-maple-leafs","13":"tag-mapleleafs","14":"tag-nhl","15":"tag-ottawa-senators","16":"tag-radko-gudas","17":"tag-toronto","18":"tag-toronto-maple-leafs","19":"tag-torontomapleleafs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116241394439861390","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506856","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=506856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}