Drake Batherson is in the last year of a contract that has provided plenty of value for the Ottawa Senators. He will receive the final year of his $4.95 million annual deal, and if Steve Staios wants to keep him in the organization, there is a strong chance it will take a contract in the double digits annually.
For any 32 Thoughts listeners this past season, Batherson was an oft-mentioned trivia question as having an interesting career to this point. If he continues to improve year-over-year, he will soon have the longest streak in NHL history of career-year point production.
The Nova Scotian started his career with back-to-back seasons of nine and 10 points, before recording 34 in his first full NHL season. Over the following five seasons, he continued to get better, until finally recording 71 in 77 games this past season.
It's hard to predict what Batherson's ceiling is, but with an elevated role this upcoming season with Brady Tkachuk off the roster, it wouldn't be too surprising to see him eclipse that career-high once again. If he does, Staios is going to have to be ready to pay him, with the contracts of Adrian Kempe and Alex Tuch as potential models.
Kempe has three consecutive seasons of 73+ points, which means Batherson might need to show a bit more of a ceiling this year to justify the $10.625 million annual salary that the Los Angeles Kings winger earned this past season. However, with the salary cap growing year-over-year, rising contract costs could greatly benefit Ottawa's winger.
Senators' season could dictate Drake Batherson contract talks
The Senators aren't suddenly a terrible team because of Tkachuk's departure. In fact, they were 12-5-5 with the former captain out of the lineup during the 2025-26 season, thanks in large part to players like Batherson getting more opportunities. Staios might want to look at that and try to get some ink to paper before the season starts, but there are some questions that remain.
Is Batherson the type of player who will get the big ticket and not live up to the deal? He continues to get better year over year, but at a certain point he is going to hit that ceiling, and it very well could've been 71 points. The Senators can't afford to make any more mistakes with their personnel, and the front office might want to see what this roster looks like in 2026-27 before committing to any long-term deals.
Does Batherson want to stay in Ottawa with all the uncertainty surrounding them right now? Their former captain didn't want to stay with the Senators, which should make the front office very uneasy about how the rest of the roster feels about the situation. Batherson seems content where he is, but Tkachuk did too until that all started to turn this past season.
The biggest goal now is to keep good players who want to be in Ottawa. If Batherson is willing to commit, Staios will likely need to hand him a blank cheque and hope that agent Paul Capizzano doesn't demand anything too egregious. The best-case scenario for the Senators is that the ever-rising career-high point streak extends into at least the first few years of his new deal.
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