OTTAWA -- Brady Tkachuk is fighting an inner battle to stay patient, sidelined with a torn ligament in his right thumb a few weeks into the season with the Ottawa Senators.
"All I want to do is be out there," the Senators captain said Wednesday, six days after surgery to repair what he called a "fully" torn ligament. "You train so hard, train so long in the summer, that I felt the best I've ever felt coming into this year. It's just a little bump in the road, but I'm now going to take this time to not sulk in it, but when I come back, I don't want it to just be status quo.
"I feel like there's going to be a level to my game that I know I'm going to be able to get to these next couple weeks."
Tkachuk crashed into the boards headfirst -- and hand first -- after a cross-check from Roman Josi in the first period of a 4-1 loss to the Nashville Predators on Oct. 13. After attempting to play through the pain, he sat out the final 9:04 of the third period.
"I remember I had that partial breakaway [midway through the second period]," Tkachuk said, "and usually on any given day, I'm very confident, and I knew right when I shot it that it was a complete muffin, and I just knew that my finger was killing me right when I shot it too. I knew kind of then, just every time I touched the puck it was bothering me. ... Eventually I just couldn't hold on to my stick."
Tkachuk was hesitant Wednesday to give a timeline for a full recovery, but he said he's already resumed skating and expects to be handling a puck in "three or four weeks."
