Brady Tkachuk says Senators ‘will show what our team is about’

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LOS ANGELES — The captain isn’t ready to shake the white towel.

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All Brady Tkachuk wants to do is help the Ottawa Senator right the ship.

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The Senators passed the quarter mark of the NHL season on Sunday night, wrapping up this four-game road trip against the Los Angeles Kings at Crypto.com Arena.

After a 5-1 win over the Anaheim Ducks on Friday, the Senators were looking to wrap up their trip to the Golden State with a second straight win. The East’s final wildcard he’s 10 points away from the spot, so it’s likely the Senators will make the playoffs, but we can never say never.

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“We have three-quarters of the season left and a lot of hockey games left,” Tkachuk told the newspaper in a one-on-one interview before the Kings game on Sunday. “We’ve been playing pretty solid hockey these days. Of course, we hope for better results.

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“But we still have[61 games left]and I’m sure we have a lot of time left and we can make up for some ground.

The challenge facing senators is not simple. The club passed the important American Thanksgiving mark this weekend. In many cases, the task of making the NHL’s big dance in the spring becomes much more difficult when the team isn’t in the playoff picture.

“Every day we have to get to work to get the job done. Our group has that capacity, so we have to do whatever it takes,” he said. “Everyone is responsible for whether the first 20 games go or go wrong, but there’s still a lot of time left and plenty of seasons to play.”

Forgive Tokachuk if you don’t want to listen to all the pundits who have declared Ottawa’s playoff chances to be over. It’s been a tough start to the season for Tkachuk, but he hasn’t lost confidence in the group.

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“It’s easy to make excuses and think Thanksgiving is the big day,” Tkachuk said. “But we don’t care one bit about it. We know we’re better than where we stand. There’s a game and a stretch, and we play the game.” And now that we’ve dictated the game, it’s only a matter of time before we show what our team is all about.

“I don’t think they’re worried about the Thanksgiving date. There’s still plenty of time left, so the playoffs usually look like that.”

The Senator has struggled at times, in nearly every aspect of the game. There have been nights when he had trouble scoring goals, there have been nights when he self-harmed on a mistake and fell into the net, and the club is the team with the third highest number of penalties in the league.

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To turn this around, the Senators will need timely scoring, better defensive play, and strong goaltending. They had all three in the final Ducks dominance down the Anaheim highway on Friday, so they need more efforts like that.

“Our calling card moving forward here is our work ethic, our execution, and our consistency in the actual game,” said Tkachuk. You have to actually develop good habits.To push the guy next door, you have to push yourself.”

The Senators faced adversity during the first two months of the season. Goalkeeper Cam Talbot wasn’t ready to start the season due to a rib injury, and defensemen Thomas Chabot and Artem Zub both missed long stretches.

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Top center Josh Norris suffered a non-surgical shoulder injury on Oct. 22 and will be reassessed in January to see if he can return this season. Senators struggled to fill that void.

“Josh is an incredible player. His speed, spots, skill in the puck and defensive play are what we miss,” said Tkachuk. “I miss him even in the locker room. He is a great leader and a man on our team. He does it right every day.

“Everybody loves him and we definitely miss him. It’s part of the business because injuries happen. The guys have to up their game and help the group.” Hmm.. you guys did a good job of doing that and we will miss Josh and can’t wait to have him back.”

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There’s a lot of negativity surrounding this team, with darts being thrown from all over by social media warriors. Everyone is criticized, but the senator is deaf to those opinions.

“A lot of them aren’t in the locker room and they’re not there for every day of us trying to get work done,” Tkachuk said. , we put everything in. We put our blood, sweat and tears into this team to be part of a winning organization.

“We’re really trying our best here, but of course we haven’t shown results. For the most part, we’ve been playing really solid hockey. No matter how hard you try, it will always be there.You have to be focused day in and day out with your teammates trying to give it their all.”

bgarrioch@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/sungarrioch

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