![\"Drake](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/USATSI_27741873-1024x683.jpg\")
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Drake Batherson was slated to be a free agent in 2027 before signing his extension. David Kirouac \/ Imagn Images<\/p>\n
The Ottawa Senators have re-signed forward Drake Batherson to an eight-year, $86 million contract extension,\u00a0according to a league source who spoke to The Athletic on\u00a0condition of anonymity to discuss contract talks.<\/p>\n
The winger, whose new deal carries an average annual value of $10.75 million, was slated to be a free agent in 2027. Batherson\u2019s contract is the most lucrative in Senators\u2019 history, surpassing Tim St\u00fctzle\u2019s eight-year, $66.8 million extension signed in September 2022.<\/p>\n
Batherson is coming off a career-best season in 2025-26, registering 33 goals and 71 points in 79 games with the Senators. It is the seventh consecutive season in which Batherson improved on his prior year\u2019s totals. The winger also scored three goals in four playoff games. The 28-year-old has 149 goals and 364 points in 470 career NHL games, all with Ottawa. The Senators drafted Batherson in the fourth round in 2017.<\/p>\n
The extension announcement comes hours before the current collective bargaining agreement expires, at 11:59 p.m. Tuesday. It\u2019s the final day that NHL players can sign eight-year-long extensions or seven-year contracts as free agents. In the upcoming CBA, the maximum contract extension is seven years, and the maximum term is six years for free agents.<\/p>\n
The extension is Ottawa\u2019s latest offseason move; the team traded<\/a> Brady Tkachuk to Florida and acquired William Eklund, Andr\u00e9 Burakovsky and Samuel Ersson this summer. The Sens also re-signed Nick Cousins ahead of the free-agent period before Claude Giroux rejoined<\/a> the team in early July.<\/p>\n This story will be updated.<\/p>\n Sep 15, 2026<\/p>\n Connections: Sports Edition<\/p>\n Spot the pattern. Connect the terms<\/p>\n Find the hidden link between sports terms<\/p>\n Play today’s puzzle<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Drake Batherson was slated to be a free agent in 2027 before signing his extension. David Kirouac \/…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":892868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,6597,85],"class_list":["post-892867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-ottawa-senators","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=892867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/892868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=892867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=892867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=892867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n