Updated Trade Packages for Brady Tkachuk After Ottawa Senators Playoff Elimination

The Ottawa Senators entered the 2025-26 postseason as a potential sleeper team in the Eastern Conference. They played great in the second half, had strong underlying numbers, were an outstanding defensive team and just needed some goaltending to potentially give the Carolina Hurricanes a scare and perhaps go on a surprising run.

Well, they mostly received the goaltending.

They just didn't get anything else.

With their 4-2 loss to the Hurricanes on Saturday, the Senators were officially eliminated from the playoffs and now get set to enter what could be an offseason of change.

The biggest potential change could involve team captain Brady Tkachuk, who has been mentioned in trade speculation for months now. There are rumblings that Tkachuk would like a change, and a recent podcast appearance in which his brother (Matthew Tkachuk) and dad (Keith Tkachuk) ripped the Senators' coaching staff didn't exactly dispel that speculation. Nor did his rather uninspired play in the playoffs seem to be more of a detriment than a positive for the Senators with zero points in four games.

If Tkachuk does indeed ask out, or if the Senators decide they need a fresh start, let's take a look at some potential trade packages that could make a deal happen.

There are basically two types of blockbuster trades involving big-name, star players in the NHL.

There is the rebuilding trade that never seems to bring back as much as people think, and usually follows a standard boilerplate of: Top prospect, good young NHL player, and first-round pick. Think Jack Eichel to Vegas or Quinn Hughes to Minnesota.

Then there is the "mostly one-for-one, change of scenery hockey trade." Think Shea Weber for P.K. Subban, Taylor Hall for Adam Larsson, or even the Matthew Tkachuk-Jonathan Huberdeau swap.

A potential Tkachuk trade would likely be more of the latter.

These are hypothetical ideas and we're trying to play armchair general manager, and a lot of these proposals are based on the idea that Ottawa would still be trying to build a competitive team next season. This is not a tear the whole thing down and rebuild from scratch deal. This is a "everybody involved needs a change and needs somebody else that can help us now" situation.

So let's talk about some ideas.

Florida Panthers

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Proposed Trade: 2026 first-round pick, other picks and Anton Lundell for Brady Tkachuk

Let's just go for peak chaos here and put the Tkachuk brothers on the same team. We already know what that looks like from the 4 Nations face-off and Olympics, and it would no doubt be just as crazy in the NHL.

The Panthers have Sergei Bobrovsky's contract coming off the books, and there are some potential trade pieces here that could make some sense.

Florida still has its first-round pick for this season, and assuming it is not the No. 1 overall pick and stays in the No. 8-9 range, there could be an argument to potentially use it as a trade chip in a win-now move.

How about that No. 8 or 9 overall pick and Anton Lundell as a starting point? A top-10 pick in this class would be a nice asset to have, while Lundell, who is still only 24 years old, is a sensational defensive center and still has some untapped offensive potential. Ottawa would probably want more given the "in-division" price tag, but we are talking starting points here.

Do not let the Panthers record this season fool you. They are going to be contenders again next season, with Aleksander Barkov back in the mix, a full season of Tkachuk, and, ideally, better injury luck than they had this season. They are also one of the more aggressive front offices in the NHL. They could have something big planned for this offseason and go all in to get back to a Stanley Cup level. Why not something like this? It would definitely be chaotic.

St. Louis Blues

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Proposed Trade: Jordan Kyrou and 2026 first-round pick for Brady Tkachuk

There are enough puzzle pieces here to put together to make this make sense.

Tkachuk has connections to the Blues, having grown up around the team when his dad spent nearly a decade playing for them.

The Blues have a forward, Jordan Kyrou, who has also been in trade speculation for some time now and would be an obvious match to flip in a trade.

Tkachuk gets a fresh start with a new team he has some ties to, Kyrou gets a fresh start and gets to go to a team where he does not have to be one of the top guys (Tim Stutzle would be "the guy" in Ottawa), and they have pretty similar contracts that would not require a lot of salary cap movement one way or the other.

They are also pretty similar in that they are roughly the same age (Tkachuk is 26; Kyrou is 27) and have similar production levels, even though they have different playing styles. Kyrou's 2025-26 season was a down year for him offensively, but at his peak, he is the same 60-70 point player that Tkachuk is.

The question becomes whether Kyrou would waive his no-trade protections to go to Ottawa, and what else the Blues might need to throw in (because they probably would be the team that needs to add something) to make it work. St. Louis has THREE first-round picks this season and could easily add one of the lower ones into any trade package. Would that be enough? Would it be too much? It at least seems like a solid starting point.

New York Rangers

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Proposed Trade: Alexis Lafreniere and Rangers' late 2026 NHL first-round pick for Brady Tkachuk

Will the New York Rangers be interested in Tkachuk if he were to become available? Almost certainly. This is what the New York Rangers do. If a big name is out there, they will be in on it, whether it makes sense or not.

Does it make sense? And should they be in on it? That is an entirely different debate, and the answer is probably no.

But we're still going to throw the logical argument out the window here and go off the mindset that they will be illogical.

The most obvious starting point here is Alexis Lafreniere, the 2021 No. 1 overall pick.

Lafreniere has been a bit of a disappointment in the sense that he hasn't produced the way you want a top pick to produce this far into his career. That does not mean he is a bad player, because he most certainly is not. He is very good, and given the way he played down the stretch this season, there should still be some belief that he can take the next step in his career.

Like Kyrou with the Blues, he has a contract that could align well with the Senators' cap numbers and would also give them a player who can still help them win right now (which should be the goal).

The Rangers shouldn't even consider trading their own first-round pick in the Tkachuk deal (because it is likely to be somewhere in the top-3, and definitely in the top-5), but they do have an additional first-round pick from Carolina as a result of the K'Andre Miller trade.

Something like Lafreniere and that later first could be a good starting point, with maybe another prospect added on.

Tkachuk is the better player right now, and given his possession-driving ability and shot volume, there's always a chance he could have a big shooting percentage year and go wild with 40 or 50 goals. But until that happens, he's not really a player you build the whole thing around. Is that the type of player the Rangers should pay a big price for? Including a young forward that still has star potential? Especially when they are seemingly so far away from being a serious contender?

Maybe not. But it is what they do.

New Jersey Devils

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Proposed Trade: Nico Hischier for Brady Tkachuk, one-for-one

Let's just stay in the New York-New Jersey metro area and throw the Devils into the mix.

This team just needs ... something.

It needs some kind of spark and something to really get the juices flowing. There's a lot of talent here. There is reason to believe they can turn this around relatively quickly. But even with a superstar in Jack Hughes, it is still a largely dull team.

There's also a player here that could make sense in a potential swap, and it's center Nico Hischier.

If the contract situations were the same, I would not be as interested in this from a Devils perspective. But the contract situations are NOT the same: Hischier is entering the final year of his contract with the Devils, and there is at least some concern that he may not re-sign. You don't really want to risk losing him for nothing, and unless you are convinced you can win the Stanley Cup this season with him, it might make some sense to get out in front of that and shop him around this offseason.

How about a swap of Tkachuk for Hischier? Especially if the Senators could re-sign Hischier long-term? Ottawa already has some solid center depth on this roster, but Claude Giroux is closer to the end of his career, and Hischier is a better player than both Dylan Cozens and Shane Pinto. A 1-2 punch down the middle of Stutzle-Hischier would be pretty fantastic, while the Devils get a top-line winger that could bring a spark.