Jordan Spence's Brady Tkachuk comments sound harsh, but there is more to the story

The clip reads like shade, but it is really about ice time.

The quote came on a Senators-focused podcast with Jason York and Graeme Nichols, and it spread fast.

The clip has been read as a shot at the departed captain. Spence is actually describing something he lived through himself.

Tkachuk consumed premium deployment in Ottawa. Only four Senators started a higher share of shifts in the offensive zone than Spence at midseason last year, and Tkachuk was one of them.

He was also swept out of the first round by the Carolina Hurricanes without a point in four games, and requested the trade roughly ten days after that.

Spence began that season sheltered as well. After the Olympic break he averaged more than 21 minutes a night and finished leading all Senators defensemen in expected and actual goal differential at five-on-five.

That is the real argument. Ottawa went 44-27-11 for 99 points as Travis Green leaned harder on his best puck movers instead of protecting them.

Tkachuk's exit does not delete those minutes from the roster. It redistributes them, and Spence just signed four years at a $5 million average annual value to take some of them.

Steve Staios converted his captain into William Eklund, Andre Burakovsky and draft capital.

The uncounted piece is the deployment inheritance. A departing star does not only take goals with him, he vacates offensive zone starts, power play net-front and matchup shelter that get handed to cheaper players.

Ottawa is running that experiment in public this season.

Any team weighing a franchise-player trade should watch whether Spence and Eklund convert the freed usage into production, because that answer sets the price on the next captain who asks out.

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