Having clinched a playoff berth for the first time since 2017 on Tuesday, the Ottawa Senators are considering holding out injured captain Brady Tkachuk for the final four regular-season games.

Tkachuk, 25, has missed the past five games with an upper-body injury sustained on a hit from Pittsburgh defenseman Ryan Graves in the host Penguins’ 1-0 overtime victory on March 30.

Senators general manager Steve Staios said Wednesday that the forward might play if the playoffs started Thursday, but he couldn’t give a definitive answer.

“(Tkachuk) continues to progress,” said Staios, also the team’s president of hockey operations. “Now that we’ve clinched a playoff spot, I think every team goes through these discussions. Like, what is the best situation? Do you rest players? How do you manage that? We haven’t figured that part out yet, but to me, you always want to keep the team moving along and competing at a high level to roll into the playoffs at the right time. But certainly, those will be discussions that we’ll have, as far as lineup for the last four games.”

Tkachuk has a team highs with 29 goals and 123 penalty minutes, as well as 26 assists, a plus-2 rating, 33 blocks and 227 hits in 71 games.

The Senators (42-30-6, 90 points) have the first wild-card berth in the Eastern Conference. Their regular-season schedule continues Friday with a visit from the Montreal Canadiens, followed by home games against Philadelphia on Sunday, Chicago on Tuesday and Carolina on April 17.

Ottawa selected Tkachuk with the fourth overall pick of the 2018 NHL Draft, a year after the Senators lost to the Penguins in the conference finals. He made his NHL debut in 2018 and has 191 goals, 404 points, 750 penalty minutes, 193 blocks and 1,758 hits in 511 regular-season games.

–Field Level Media