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“You’re all such good friends, and you’ve been through a lot together,” he said. “It’s one of those things you kind of discuss in small groups. I haven’t talked to (Karlsson) about it a ton, but any player in any situation, when you put down roots in a city and there’s rumours, I mean it’s tough.”

Borowiecki understands it’s all part of the business, that as professionals they are paid to play and “block out all those distractions.” He also knows the Senators put themselves in this situation by failing to get the job done in all but 21 of 60 games to date.

As someone who cares as much as he does about teammates he considers family, Borowiecki is very much bothered by the thought of having to say good-bye to a brother, or brothers.

He made that quite clear after the scrum had moved on and he was left talking to a couple of veteran sports writers.

“We’re a little anxious right now, I’m not going to lie,” Borowiecki said. “You could kind of see it tonight a little bit too, reflective in our play. There’s just so many rumours about so many guys. You do your best to tune it out, but at some point you’re not just going to ignore it.

“It’s funny, we don’t really look at it that much, but we see that TSN trade list or whatever, we’ve got a lot of guys on there. You can’t help but notice it a little bit. It does take a bit of a toll on you. Yeah, you try to be the consummate professional, but you’re human, too. You’ve got buddies or families, you’ve got buddies who have been here for awhile that you’ve been through a lot with, and the possibility of losing them slowly creeps it’s way into the room.”