Senators fans will get their first look Saturday at franchise icon Daniel Alfredsson in Toronto colours when Ottawa opens the season at Scotiabank Arena.

It’s a bitter pill that is still tough for fans of the Ottawa Senators to swallow.

Daniel Alfredsson, the club’s former captain, spent nearly two decades giving Senators fans reasons to cheer.

That’s why seeing Ottawa’s most beloved player wearing the blue of the Toronto Maple Leafs has left many in the nation’s capital feeling blue.

The Senators will open the National Hockey League season on Saturday night with Round 1 of the Battle of Ontario in enemy territory, with Scotiabank Arena acting as the stage.

Not only will Senators fans get their first glimpse of the new faces added during the off-season, they’ll also see a familiar one in an unfamiliar place: Alfredsson, the franchise’s legendary former captain, standing behind the Leafs bench.

“It’ll be weird for sure,” Ottawa’s newly minted captain, Thomas Chabot, said before the club left for Toronto on Friday. “Even seeing him in pre-season, seeing him there. Like we said in camp, he made the decision and all we can do is wish him the best.”

For 17 seasons, Alfredsson was the heart and soul of the Senators, with the ‘C’ emblazoned on his chest, and his No. 11 was the first in the modern-day history of the franchise to be retired.

It’s still stunning that Alfredsson, 53, left his post with the Senators to become an associate coach on Jim Hiller’s staff, but this is the world that we’re living in — nothing should surprise anybody anymore.

Alfredsson cut his teeth as a coach with the Senators for parts of three seasons. He went behind the bench when Jacques Martin took over from D.J. Smith midway through the 2023-24 campaign and worked with Travis Green for two seasons.

Mats Sundin, the club’s senior advisor to hockey operations, told the Toronto Sun‘s Lance Hornby on Friday that this game will go a long way toward helping Alfredsson turn the page on the Senators.

“He’s an icon and arguably the most important player in the Senators’ franchise,” Sundin said. “But it’s not just the knowledge of the game he brings, it’s the values he brings to help us get better.

“That’s the only thing we’ve been focusing on (not past incidents). That stuff (his heat-of-the-moment exchanges with Alfredsson and the latter’s playoff hit on Darcy Tucker) was so long ago.”

Somebody needs to tell Sundin that there is no argument: Alfredsson is the most iconic player in the history of the Ottawa franchise.

Wayne Gretzky, aka The Great One, told me in an interview in 2014 that Alfredsson was the flag-bearer for the Ottawa franchise.

“He’s sort of the Jean Beliveau of the Senators. I’m not trying to compare him to Beliveau, but he’s got that kind of class,” Gretzky said days before Alfredsson’s number was retired.

Gretzky was right then and he still is about what Alfredsson means in this city.

Nobody is exactly sure why Alfredsson left the Senators when his contract expired on July 1. He told Steve Staios, the club’s president of hockey operations and general manager, and Green that he wouldn’t be back with Ottawa.

The plan was to be on the bench with the Central Canada Hockey League’s Kemptville 73s until Sundin and Toronto general manager John Chayka interviewed Alfredsson for the Leafs’ top job.

Alfredsson helped the likes of Tim Stutzle, Drake Batherson, Dylan Cozens and Shane Pinto grow their two-way games.

“We heard he was not going to re-sign after July 1 or stay there. So for us, he just saw a great opportunity,” Sundin said. “We have a lot of skill players, and with his knowledge of being one himself in a Canadian market, with our top players and with Gavin McKenna coming in, we really believed it would help having someone on the ice on an everyday basis who’d be a great experience for our group.”

That’s why Hiller knows this isn’t any other game for Alfredsson.

“We’ve talked during the pre-season, but it’s going to be a big night for him, let’s be honest. I loved the ovation he got from Leaf fans,” Hiller said of the reception from the Toronto crowd on opening night.

“There was some talk about what it was going to be like, but I thought it was tremendous. His days have gone by as a player. Now he’s one of our coaches. It’s full support from Leafs Nation.”

We asked Ottawa defenceman Jake Sanderson if he might do a double-take when he sees Alfredsson on the Toronto bench.

“I honestly didn’t think about it. I kind of forgot,” Sanderson said.

Maybe, like a lot of people in this city, Sanderson was trying to forget this ever happened.

“It’ll be kind of weird,” Sanderson said. “It’s something I’m still processing. It will be a little strange seeing him on the other side.”

For Senators fans, Alfie is with the Leafs — but that doesn’t mean it’ll ever look right.