Drake Batherson and the Senators have started extension talks, but the early read is clear: there’s still plenty of distance to cover.
According to Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch, the two sides “aren't close” to an agreement, and league executives think Batherson could land somewhere in the $10 million to $11 million range per season if he makes it to unrestricted free agency next summer.
That’s a big number, but Batherson has earned the right to be in that conversation. He’s heading into the final year of one of the league’s best-value deals, a contract with a $4.975 million cap hit that has delivered steady production for years. He has put up 60-plus points in each of the last four seasons, and in 2025-26 he pushed even higher, cracking 30 goals and 70 points for the first time.
He also gave Ottawa a lift in the playoffs. In the Senators’ four-game sweep at the hands of the Carolina Hurricanes, Batherson led the team with three goals and four points even as the club managed only five goals in the series.
Salary-wise, he’s about to leap past the top of Ottawa’s current list. Tim Stützle, Jake Sanderson, Thomas Chabot and Linus Ullmark all sit at $8 million and change, though their contract situations differ. Ullmark and Chabot each have two years remaining, while Stützle and Sanderson are locked in for five and six more years.
There’s no immediate deadline forcing Ottawa’s hand, since Batherson still has one season left on his deal. But the longer this goes, the more leverage his camp could gain if that open market really is waiting with a deal north of $10 million a year.
Batherson has already made it clear he’d be open to staying. Back in May, he said he hoped something could get done this summer and explained why Ottawa matters to him.
"Oh, yeah," Batherson said. "I mean, it's a great spot for me.
It's close to home. I've been here for almost a decade now and made so many friends outside of hockey in Ottawa.
So, yeah, it feels like home."
He also made it clear this week that he isn’t going to turn contract talks into a public spectacle. When Brent Wallace asked him on Coming in Hot whether he had any updates, Batherson smiled and said he can’t negotiate publicly.
So the ingredients are there: interest from both sides, a player who wants to stay, and a market that could get expensive fast. The question now is simple - how far apart are they, and how much is Ottawa willing to pay to keep Batherson from testing free agency?
In Other News...
Travis Green Thinks Ottawa Took A Real Step Toward Contending
After the Senators were swept out of the first round by Carolina, Travis Green did not sound like a coach trying to spin a disappointing finish into something shiny. He talked instead about a team that spent the season building something sturdier, leaning on its identity, handling injuries and other adversity, and finding ways to stay together long enough to earn a playoff berth. Ottawas season ended sooner than anyone in the room wanted, but Green framed the year as a meaningful step for a club that finished ninth in the league and still showed real growth.
Greens bigger point was about where this group sits on the long road back to true contention. He said the Senators are closer to winning a Stanley Cup now than they were when he first arrived, a sign that progress is being measured not just by results, but by how the team has learned to respond when things get difficult. For a fan base that has waited through plenty of false starts, the challenge now is turning that confidence and identity into something that lasts well beyond one encouraging season. [Read more 🡒]
Calgary Flames Face Tough Dustin Wolf Decision During Rebuild
Calgarys rebuild is already forcing some awkward planning questions, and Dustin Wolf is right at the center of them. As the Flames sort through the next phase of their roster, his age and contract stand out against a younger core that is still coming into focus, creating the kind of timeline mismatch teams usually hope to avoid when they are building from the ground up.
For a club trying to climb back into contention, the challenge is not just identifying talent but lining up the right windows so the best pieces peak together. The Flames can look at other NHL rebuilds for examples of how to speed things up, but the hard truth is that accelerating the process is easier to talk about than to execute, especially when the clock is already ticking on a goalie in his prime years. [Read more 🡒]