Brady Tkachuk's return to face Senators recalls some of the NHL's most hostile homecomings

The expectation is Brady Tkachuk won’t be welcomed back to the Canadian Tire Centre with open arms on Wednesday night.

The former Ottawa Senators captain has tried to tell anyone who will listen that Canada’s capital will always mean a lot to him after spending seven years with the organization, but those words will likely fall on deaf ears when he returns with the Florida Panthers.

The Senators turned the page on the Tkachuk era the day they dealt him to the Panthers on June 21, so he could play with his brother, Matthew, and the subject really doesn’t come up in the dressing room at all.

It will this week because this will close the book on that chapter.

Tkachuk, 27, isn’t the first player in the National Hockey League to go back to a hostile environment, and he won’t be the last.

The Senators will honour him with a video during the first television timeout, but this won’t be anything like the celebrated returns of former captain Daniel Alfredsson with the Detroit Red Wings or Erik Karlsson with the San Jose Sharks.

They were both welcomed back with open arms by the faithful at the Canadian Tire Centre.

Here’s a look at some former Senators and players around the league who have been forced to make an unhappy return to one of their old haunts.

Lindros never suited up for a game with the Quebec Nordiques after being selected No. 1 overall in 1991. He didn’t put the jersey on while on stage with club officials and demanded a trade.

Traded to the Philadelphia Flyers in a massive package in 1992 that included Peter Forsberg going the other way, Lindros made his first appearance at Le Colisée in the 1992-93 campaign.

Lindros expected an ugly reception, and he got one. He was booed every time he touched the puck, and the fans threw baby pacifiers on the ice because Lindros had refused to sign there.

A local radio station handed out 3,000 pacifiers before the game and, of course, they landed on the ice.

He did score twice in the club’s 6-3 loss to the Nordiques.

A two-time 50-goal scorer, Heatley demanded a trade in the summer of 2009 because he didn’t like his role under former coach Cory Clouston and wanted to move on.

It was a bitter divorce that started with Heatley refusing a trade to the Edmonton Oilers on June 30, 2009, and then showing up for camp in September, only to be traded to the San Jose Sharks by GM Bryan Murray.

Former owner Eugene Melnyk pursued a grievance over the $4-million bonus Heatley was paid on July 1 after he refused the proposed deal to Edmonton. The sides reached a settlement in 2013, and the terms weren’t disclosed.

Fans waited in anticipation for Heatley to return. The front page of the Ottawa Sun on Dec. 2, 2010, had a doctored picture of Heatley with a soother in his mouth. The paper also included a do-it-yourself “lifesized crybaby mask.”

There were signs in the rink calling him a “traitor” for moving to the Sharks.

He was booed every time he touched the puck, and fans cheered loudly when Jason Spezza sent Heatley to the ice. During a television timeout, fans tossed No. 15 jerseys onto the ice.

Heatley got the last laugh with a 4-0 win by the Sharks.

After nine years with the New York Islanders, Tavares decided to depart for greener pastures as an unrestricted free agent on July 1, 2018.

Fans of the Islanders felt jilted and misled. The Isles opted not to deal Tavares at the trade deadline in March 2018 because they felt that New York had a good chance to bring him back.

Instead, Tavares signed a seven-year, $77 million deal with Toronto.

Isles fans were incensed, and there was a social media post of Tavares as a child sleeping in Leafs’ bed sheets. When he returned to the Nassau County Coliseum with Toronto, the fans let him know it.

Some fans burned his jersey and Tavares was booed heavily after a video tribute in the first, with fans chanting, “We don’t want you,” and the Leafs took it on the chin in a 6-1 loss.

The headline in the New York Post read Ottawa fans will be Trashin’ Yashin’.

The good people at the Corel Centre didn’t disappoint.

The former captain was the first player selected by the Senators, going No. 2 overall in the 1992 NHL Draft at the Montreal Forum.

He spent seven years in the Ottawa organization. Yashin finished with 218 goals and 491 points in 504 career games with the club, but off-ice distractions marked his stay with the Senators.

A $1 million donation he made to the NAC ended in controversy because the agreement included jobs for his parents.

He was stripped of the captaincy by the Senators in 2000 after he returned from a year-long holdout in Switzerland to honour the final year of his contract.

Yashin was traded to the Islanders by GM Marshall Johnston in a trade that brought the club back defenceman Zdeno Chara, Bill Muckalt and a top selection the Senators used to pick Spezza.

The Senators’ faithful weren’t happy with Yashin, who had the club’s franchise scoring records at that time, and they let him know it. He was booed when he touched the puck and the game ended with the Senators scoring a 5-2 victory.

“Mother Teresa would have a bad reputation in Ottawa,” former Isles GM Mike Milbury said after making the trade.

Breaking up was hard to do between the Buffalo Sabres and Eichel.

Eichel, who spent six years with the Sabres, couldn’t come to an agreement with the team on whether he could have surgery to repair a herniated disc in his neck that forced him to miss 33 games during the 2020-21 campaign.

As a result, the Sabres dealt Eichel to the Vegas Golden Knights on Nov. 4, 2021, because Buffalo management didn’t think he should have artificial disc replacement surgery. The Knights gave the green light and Eichel debuted with the club on Feb. 16, 2022.

Back at the KeyBank Center for the first time since the trade late in the season, Eichel was booed when he stepped on the ice for warmup and it only got worse as the game went on. The faithful not only booed him when he had the puck, they jeered Eichel on every shift.

The reaction to his tribute video was mixed.

The Sabres scored a 3-1 victory over the Knights, but that didn’t stop Eichel from firing a parting shot before he left the building.

“That’s the loudest I’ve heard this place, ever,” Eichel said. “It only took seven years and me leaving for them to get into it.”

Pronger will be in the building on Wednesday night as part of the Amazon Prime broadcast crew.

After losing to the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final with the Edmonton Oilers in 2006, Pronger demanded a trade for what he called “personal reasons.” That left the good people of Edmonton with a bitter taste in their mouths.

“I’ve been asked that question a million times and I’ve answered that question a million times, and my answer isn’t going to change,” he said the day before the game. “It’s personal, family reasons, and that’s as much as I’m going to get into it.”

The Oilers relented and sent Pronger to the Anaheim Ducks on July 3, 2006.

The crowd at Rexall Place wasn’t happy with Pronger. He was booed heavily upon his return to Edmonton. The crowd chanted, “Pronger sucks,” because fans felt they’d been jilted by the future Hall of Famer.

The Ducks came back to win 3-2 in overtime.