“It’s frustrating, the negativity from the outside, the constant booing and the bulls-t” Sens captain Brady Tkachuk sounds off on boos from fans

Ottawa Senators fans aren’t too pleased with the performance of the Sens so far this season, but captain Brady Tkachuk isn’t too pleased with their reaction on Saturday night.

The Sens had another rough performance at the Canadian Tire Centre on Saturday as they lost 6-4 to the Tampa Bay Lightning, and were met with a plethora of boos from the fans. However, Tkachuk wasn’t happy about it, even if the team isn’t playing as well as they should.

“It’s frustrating and whenever you don’t win it’s frustrating,” Tkachuk said in a post-game media scrum. “It’s frustrating, the negativity from the outside, the constant booing and the bullshit, kind of, from the crowd tonight. I understand that they’re passionate fan base and I understand that they love it, but when you face adversity you don’t turn your back on the guys out there. We’re playing hard, I know it’s frustrating right now. It’s not like we’re giving up out there, we’re fighting right to the very end. To be honest, that was very frustrating tonight.”

The loss was the Sens fifth in the last six games and four straight at home, and dropped them to a 4-6-0 record after a 3-1-0 start to the year, and they now sit last in the Atlantic Division. While that alone would be justifiable enough for some unrest in the fanbase, the fact that this is the sixth season in a row that the Sens have had a .500 points percentage or worse through their first 10 games of the season, including the past three seasons where they were expected to compete for a playoff spot, has left Sens fans with little patience.

The negativity from the fanbase was particularly focused on head coach D.J. Smith, who saw darts thrown his way and “Fire D.J.” chants directed towards him. Smith is currently in his fifth season as the head coach of the Sens, with a 124-145-32 record and no playoff appearances during his tenure.

Along with the poor track record, the man who hired Smith, Pierre Dorion, was fired on Wednesday after the Senators were penalized with a forfeited first-round pick in 2024, 2025, or 2026 after failing to provide the Vegas Golden Knights with the proper information on Evgenii Dadonov’s no-trade clause when they dealt him to Vegas. With Dorion gone, that may leave room for Smith to follow suit quickly, although Sens owner Michael Andlauer publicly backed Smith after Dorion’s firing.