The 28-year-old winger finished second on the team in goals, assists and points and had a point a game in the playoffs.
For the past five years, Drake Batherson has been on one of the most club-friendly contracts in the NHL. But at the time of the signing, it might have felt riskier for the Senators than it needed to.
With camp about to open back in 2021, Batherson signed a six-year deal with the Sens with an average annual value of $4.975 million. It was very much like the six-year deal that top prospect Colin White had just signed two years earlier, and White's contract was starting to go sideways.
History now shows that one of those deals was not like the other.
While White was bought out halfway through his contract, Batherson immediately lived up to his end of the bargain and more. In the first year of his new deal, he was a point-per-game player and earned an all-star selection before an ankle injury cut his 2021-22 season short.
In the four years since, he's just gotten better and better, improving his point totals in every season. Batherson closed out 2025-26 with 33 goals and 71 points, both career highs.
And while the offensive tap generally ran dry for the Senators in the playoffs, it continued to flow for Batherson. As a team, the Sens had five total goals in their series, and Batherson was in on four of them (3 goals, 1 assist).
This summer, as of July 1, Batherson will be in the final year of his deal and thus, eligible to sign an extension with the Senators. But unlike his current deal, which was based in part on potential, his next contract will be based on what he is now.
So the question isn't about whether he'll get a big raise in his next deal, it's how big it will actually be.
As Batherson sat in on my podcast, Sens Nation, on Thursday afternoon, he told me he's wide open to staying in Ottawa.
"Oh, yeah," Batherson said, without hesitation. "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.
"I've lived here pretty much the same amount of time I've lived in my hometown."
When asked if there's been any preliminary talks with the Sens, Batherson noted that it's still very early and that he hadn't heard anything yet. In fact, he hasn't even talked to his agent yet since the season ended.
"This is all new to me. Obviously, it's my first time coming up on being a free agent since I was 23. That was my last one, which has flown by. I can't believe it's been five years. So yeah, we'll see what happens."
Clearly, the Senators would have extreme interest in retaining their second-best scorer, who just turned 28, but the money and term would obviously need to make sense for both sides.
Batherson's AAV checks in at just under $5 million, but he made $6.5 million in salary this year and will again next season. While no player would ever publicly disclose their asking price, a best-guess at a best-case scenario for the Senators would be $8 million, depending on term.
Conveniently enough, the cap is going up by $8.5 million next season to $104 million, and is expected to hit $113.5 million the year after that. But it remains to be seen if that level of spending will make sense to the organization when held up next to their annual revenue statement.
That said, to hear Batherson talk so fondly about the team and city, he doesn't sound like a man who's planning to grind for every penny.
In fact, given the choice between playing out the final year of his contract without an extension or getting something done with the Senators this summer, Batherson says he'd prefer the latter.
"My last go-around, I didn't get my deal done until early September, like two weeks before camp. And that summer was just stressful because you're training, you're working out, you're trying to get fired up for a season, and you know a deal is coming, but you don't know when.
"So I think the earlier you can get a deal done, the better, and just, you know, stop thinking about it. Whereas some guys, they're stressing about a deal until late into the summer every year, which is tough.
"So it'd be nice to get it done, and hopefully it happens."
By Steve Warne
The Hockey News
This article was first published at The Hockey News Ottawa. Check out more great Sens features from The Hockey News at the links below: