Brady Tkachuk’s first game back with the Ottawa Senators wasn’t a simple one.
The Senators captain returned to the nation’s capital riding the high of a gold medal with Team USA on the Olympics, but his on-ice performance hasn’t been the headline.
Earlier this week, Tkachuk was considered one of 20 American players who visited the White House and attended the State of the Union following an invite from President Donald Trump.
But what many Canadian and Senators fans took issue with was an AI-doctored video shared by the White House that made it appear he was disparaging Canadians.
The altered clip, shared by the White House’s TikTok account, inserted fabricated audio of Tkachuk referring to Canadians as “maple syrup eating f—s,” with the expletive bleeped within the video. The video carries a note saying it “comprises AI-generated media.”
“It’s clearly fake since it’s not my voice and never my lips moving,” Tkachuk said following the Senators morning skate. “I’m not in charge of any of those accounts. … I do know that those words would never come out of my mouth.”
The remaining of the day didn’t get any easier for Tkachuk.
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In the course of the first TV timeout against the Detroit Red Wings the Senators showed video of all its players and staff who competed or worked on the Olympics, ending with Tkachuk and Jake Sanderson.
The display earned an equal amount of boos and cheers.
Tkachuk did earn the support of the house crowd when he opened the scoring with a power-play goal late in the primary period.
The captain was once more in the midst of things midway through the second period.
Tkachuk was watching the play and when he went to show up ice Simon Edvinsson stepped into him. Tkachuk’s own stick hit him within the face, dropping him to the ice.
Dylan Cozens jumped to his captain’s defence and each Edvinsson and Cozens were sent to the box.
“I just didn’t see him and just felt like he lowered his shoulder on me,” Tkachuk said.
Tkachuk returned to the ice before play resumed and skated to the penalty box to confront Edvinsson drawing a 10-minute misconduct.
“I didn’t know that was like an auto 10-minute,” admitted Tkachuk. “I used to be just expressing my frustration. I didn’t realize that might be a 10-minute.
“Definitely wouldn’t have done it that way if I knew I used to be gonna get a 10-minute.”
Head coach Travis Green wasn’t a fan of how things played out.
“I don’t want him to be within the box for 10 minutes,” Green said. “You don’t see that decision made fairly often.”
The Senators played a solid game but fell 2-1 in time beyond regulation, giving up an important two points to a division rival.
Ottawa (28-22-8) is now sit seven points back of the Boston Bruins for the ultimate wild card within the Eastern Conference.
“I definitely felt that we deserved a greater result,” said Tkachuk. “I assumed we did a whole lot of great things (Thursday). Their goalie stood on his head and played a terrific game and just unlucky we didn’t get the 2 points that we wanted.”
The Senators schedule doesn’t get any easier as they prepare for a five-game road trip. With the NHL trade deadline set for March 6, Ottawa doesn’t have much time to prove its a contender.
“We’ve got to fret about just our own destiny, our own game,” said Green. “We’re going to lose some games. We got some extent out of (Thursday), probably must have got two. All you’ll be able to do is play and play well.”
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