Senators player speaks out to bury his former captain, Brady Tkachuk.

If things had truly turned toxic in the Ottawa Senators locker room before now former Senators captain Brady Tkachuk was traded to the Florida Panthers, it was only going to be a matter of time before some of the players in that locker room began to speak out in one way or another.

On Monday morning we got our first real leak from directly inside the Senators locker room when National Hockey League insider Elliotte Friedman revealed that a player within the organization had reached out to him to set the record straight.

During the course of the season, Tkachuk drew a ton of heat in Ottawa when his father, former NHL player Keith Tkachuk, went on his podcast and made what many felt were derogatory statements about Tkachuk's own teammates.

While the former Senators captain would face the media after this incident and deny any connection to his teammates in Ottawa, it is now crystal clear that the Senators didn't agree with Tkachuk's public statements at all.

"The Tkachuk thing... it was time, it was time to end the noise around the whole situation," said Friedman on the 32 Thoughts podcast. "A lot was going on and the players were tired of it and I did have someone who reached out to me, one of the players, and the only thing he felt we should have added was the podcast. The podcast caused some problems and it was just time."

That certainly doesn't sound like a locker room that was sad to see their captain go, in fact it sounds a lot more like a locker room that may have welcomed the change.