Ottawa Senators Ink Drake Batherson to 6-year Contract

With the organization liking to remain quiet throughout their negotiations with their RFA’s, Drake Batherson signed this morning seemingly out of nowhere

The contract: 6-years, $29.85 million ($4.975 million AAV)

As the Senators offseason hit a bit of a standstill following the free-agent period, people’s attention quickly shifted over to the team’s impending Restricted Free Agents which featured three core pieces of the rebuild; Brady Tkachuk, Drake Batherson, and Filip Gustavsson. With the Gustavsson domino falling last week, the Senators quickly changed their sights to signing Tkachuk and Batherson prior to training camp, and now they’ve locked up their top right-winger for 6 more seasons.

I find myself constantly drawn to Batherson’s story; an undersized kid throughout the majority of his minor hockey career, played Junior-A in his draft year (not ranked), drafted as a 4th rounder in 2017, and ever since then his rise has been meteoric. Batherson was a star on the Canadian World Junior team in 2018 that captured gold and then when he entered the professional ranks he immediately became Belleville’s top player. It seems the 23-year-old forward never stops improving, and that’s one of the main reasons why I’m such a huge fan of the player and the contract.

Batherson’s contract structure didn’t come as any surprise, as he will get paid a significantly higher salary in the last four years of his deal, Pierre Dorion and the front office aren’t just paying for what the highly-skilled forward is now but what he will be in the future. The determined winger will be paid $5 million and above for the last four years of his contract.

The Nova Scotia native finally put it all together last season, leaving no doubt that he is an NHL player and a high-end one at that. Appearing in 54 games for the Senators last season, Batherson scored 17 goals and 34 points, including a sensational 7-game goal streak where he seemingly scored on every chance he had. Add the fact that Batherson was one of the more productive Senators on the power-play producing 5 goals and 10 assists, he can play a vital role on special teams as well.

The line of Tkachuk, Norris, and Batherson really meshed in the second half of last season and they were one of the main reasons why the Senators were able to find success late last season. They are expected to start the season as the team’s undisputed top-line and everyone can reasonably expect that they will be even better next season.

“The Drake”, “Bath time”, or “Drizzy” will quickly become a fan favourite if he isn’t already, everyone raves about his character, enthusiasm, and his love of the game of hockey, if I’m betting on anyone to outplay their contract, it’s Batherson.