'I have a chef at home': Senators' Tim Stützle skips Brady Tkachuk dinner night before big return

Tim Stützle clearly didn’t see the point in clinking glasses with Brady Tkachuk the night before the former Ottawa Senators captain made his return to Canadian Tire Centre.

“I haven’t seen him,” Stützle said after the morning skate Wednesday. “I mean, I have a chef at home, so I didn’t go for dinner. Yeah, but I didn’t see him.”

Drake Batherson said earlier in the week that he’d be one of the current Senators attending a dinner with Tkachuk, who played eight seasons in Ottawa before requesting a trade in the spring. Jake Sanderson confirmed Wednesday that Tkachuk picked up the bill.

“It was great to see some of the guys, catch up a little bit, talk to a lot of them to begin with,” Tkachuk said in his first availability back in the nation’s capital. “Of course, seeing it from a different lens, it’s pretty different, but it’s been great seeing the guys. Saw a lot of the staff, too, this morning. Happy to see them and look forward to seeing them after the game.”

For Stützle, all week he has remained solely focused on the only thing that matters to him — the game.

“We played for a long time together,” Stützle said of Tkachuk, “but yeah, that’s not on my mind. I’m just trying to win a hockey game tonight. The whole team feels the same way. We’re ready to go tonight.”

The crowd of media members waiting outside the Senators’ dressing room considerably outnumbered the group that covered the playoffs in the nation’s capital last spring. Maybe even the Battle of Ontario in 2025.

“It kind of feels like a playoff game, probably,” Stützle said. “It’s going to be loud in there. Obviously, we have a lot of passionate fans.”

Hundreds of tickets remain unsold, but the Sens fans planning on attending have made it clear that it will be a hostile environment inside the arena.

“(Tkachuk has) done a lot of good things for us,” Stützle conceded. “Like, he was a really good player for us. He did a lot of things in the community, so that doesn’t go unappreciated. But we’re just going to focus on our game. We’re going to do what we have to do.”

Earlier in the morning, Lars Eller, who played 68 games for Ottawa last season, poked his head out of the Panthers’ tunnel at the beginning of the Senators’ skate. Stützle skated over and gave him a big hug. The two chatted for a minute.

“It was great. It was awesome,” Stützle said of the interaction. “I mean, I think he’s really happy where he’s at. We definitely miss him. He was a great guy in our room and a great player for us, too.

“He was definitely really helpful for me just having him as a veteran. He’s a great player, still up to this day.”