Ottawa Senators Keep Hunting a Sniper as Staios Opens Up on the Tkachuk Trade

A month after trading their captain, the Ottawa Senators spent this week doing two things at once: explaining the past and shopping for the future. Steve Staios finally opened up about how the Brady Tkachuk trade came to be — and admitted he saw it coming more than a year out — while multiple reports had Ottawa still hunting for a goal scorer to finish off the summer. Add a ticking contract clock on Drake Batherson, and this stretch of Ottawa Senators news felt less like the dog days and more like a team still mid-renovation.

Staios finally explains the Tkachuk trade

The general manager's comments, which landed midweek via Daily Faceoff, were the most candid he's been since sending Tkachuk to Florida in June for a package headlined by three first-round picks. "I saw signs of it," Staios said of his captain's desire to move on, adding that once he had "that open and honest discussion with Brady and got some feedback, we realized at that point in time that I was going to engage in a process to make a trade."

The timeline is the eyebrow-raiser: Staios says the signals appeared "probably over a year" before anything became formal. His logic for acting now was cold-blooded and probably right — Tkachuk had two years left on his deal, and GMs who wait until the contract is expiring get less back and more drama in the room. Predictably, the admission didn't sit well with everyone; a vocal slice of the fan base spent the week asking how a player quietly eyeing the exit wore the C for another full season. Fair question. But the return — three firsts and a fourth pick from a Panthers team trying to unite the Tkachuk brothers — is the kind of haul you only get by moving early. Now Ottawa gets to find out what life without its tone-setter actually looks like, starting October 21, when Florida visits Canadian Tire Centre.

The sniper hunt isn't over

The other running thread in this week's Ottawa Senators news: the front office doesn't think the forward group is finished. The Hockey News reported Ottawa is looking to add a "pure sniper," while SenShot noted late in the week that the Senators are "not done looking for firepower." The problem is timing — by late July, the free-agent shelf is mostly bare, which points toward the trade route if Staios is serious.

The additions so far are interesting rather than overwhelming:

• William Eklund, acquired from San Jose — the centerpiece of the post-Tkachuk remodel, a young winger many see slotting straight onto the top line beside Tim Stutzle.
• Andre Burakovsky, picked up from Chicago in late June for just a 2027 sixth-round pick. Classic buy-low: he had 10 goals and 29 points through 41 games last season, then managed one goal in 34 games after mid-January. If he's the first-half version, this is a steal; if not, it cost almost nothing.
• Claude Giroux, back on a new deal in early July, because some marriages just work.
• Depth signings including Philip Tomasino, Sammy Blais, Ryan Suzuki and goaltender Leevi Merilainen on new deals.

Pro Hockey Rumors' midsummer audit summed up the consensus: the Senators aren't clearly better or worse than a year ago, but they're thinner than the roster that went into last spring's playoffs. Hence the continued shopping. The complication is money: Ottawa's cap sheet doesn't leave obvious room for a legitimate top-six salary without moving something out first, which is why most of the week's speculation centered on creative trades rather than a splashy signing. Whatever Staios does next, it will have to be surgical.

Every day, Batherson gets more expensive

The most consequential piece of unfinished business isn't a trade target — it's the winger already here. Drake Batherson is entering the final season of a five-year deal that carries a cap hit under $5 million, one of the better value contracts in hockey, and he became extension-eligible this month. A widely shared piece this week argued the obvious: every day Ottawa waits, the price climbs.

The math is scary. The cap is jumping to $104 million this season and rising again after that. Connor Bedard just signed for $15 million a year in Chicago; Leo Carlsson's matched offer sheet in Anaheim came in at $18 million. Against that backdrop, insiders have floated $10 million a year as a realistic ask for a winger coming off 33 goals and 71 points in 78 games — a man who then scored three of Ottawa's playoff goals himself. Batherson, for his part, keeps saying the right things: "Oh, yeah. I mean, it's a great spot for me. It's close to home," he said of staying, while admitting the negotiation is "all new to me." With Tkachuk gone, he's now one of the longest-tenured core Senators. Letting him drift toward July 2027 unsigned would be organizational malpractice, and everyone in Ottawa seems to know it.

Roster outlook: sorting the top six

The week's analysis pieces mostly circled one question: who actually plays in the top six? Stutzle anchors it, Batherson stays, Eklund gets every chance beside them, and then it gets murky — Burakovsky, Giroux and the kids all have claims on the remaining slots, which is exactly why Staios keeps window-shopping for a finisher. The arbitration file, at least, is closed: Xavier Bourgault settled on a one-year deal on July 9, wiping out the hearing that had been scheduled for this past Saturday. On the prospect side, development camp came and went at the start of the month with Carter Yakemchuk headlining a group of 29, and the OHL's system reviews this week gave Ottawa's junior pipeline a friendly once-over.

The season-end context hanging over all of it: Ottawa made the playoffs again last spring and went out early again, a better team than the year before by style and consistency, with the same result stamped on the file. That's the gap Eklund, a healthy Burakovsky and one more scorer are supposed to close.

Dates that matter

The 2026-27 schedule arrived on July 16, and it's a big one — 84 games, starting earlier than any season in memory:

• Oct. 3: Opening night in Toronto.
• Oct. 8: Home opener against Philadelphia.
• Oct. 21: Brady Tkachuk returns with Florida. Bring earplugs.
• Dec. 18 and 20: Two games against Chicago in Dusseldorf, Germany — Ottawa's third NHL Global Series trip in nine years.
• Jan. 31 to Feb. 8: Bye week, folded into a six-game January-February homestand.

Fourteen back-to-back sets and four separate five-game road trips mean depth will get tested early and often — one more argument for adding a forward before camp.

The week ahead in Ottawa

So that's where the Ottawa Senators sit in late July: honest about why the captain left, openly hunting for goals, and staring at a Batherson negotiation that gets pricier by the week. Training camp is roughly seven weeks out, and the October 3 opener in Toronto arrives fast after that. If Staios lands his sniper and gets Batherson's name on an extension before then, this summer reads as a controlled reset rather than a retreat. If he does neither, that October 21 date with the Panthers is going to feel very loud, in all the wrong ways.