- Elliotte Friedman reports the Senators are closing in on an eight-year extension with Drake Batherson
- The AAV is believed to land between $10.5 million and $11 million, the largest deal in franchise history
- Read below for why Ottawa had to finish it before Tuesday night
The Senators are about to hand out the biggest contract in franchise history.
Elliotte Friedman reported Monday night that Ottawa is closing in on an eight-year extension with Drake Batherson, and multiple sources told him the average annual value lands somewhere between $10.5 million and $11 million.
Eight years at $10.5 million is $84 million. At $11 million it is $88 million. Either number clears anything Ottawa has ever committed to a player and makes Batherson the highest-paid Senator by a mile, with Tim Stutzle sitting second at $8.35 million.
That flips where this stood 12 hours earlier. Pierre LeBrun said Monday morning the two sides were still far apart, and that Batherson would probably take six or seven years if the money was right.
A deadline is why this moved so fast. New contract rules arrive when the calendar flips to Sept. 16 at midnight ET, and the max term for a team’s own free agent drops from eight years to seven. A player signing somewhere else goes from seven to six.
Other limits tighten too. The largest allowed gap between two straight seasons of a deal falls from 25 percent to 20, and the lowest-paying season now has to be worth at least 71 percent of the highest, up from 60.
Batherson earned the raise. He put up 33 goals and 71 points in 79 games last season, career highs in both, and finished second on the roster in each. He added three goals and four points in four playoff games before Carolina swept Ottawa in the first round.
Take a look at what a 33-goal season looked like:
He is a fourth-rounder who never left. Ottawa grabbed him 121st overall in 2017, and he has 149 goals and 364 points in 470 games, all in the same sweater. His current deal, six years at a $4.975 million cap hit, was signed back in September 2021.
Friedman also pointed at Adam Fantilli in Columbus and Cutter Gauthier in Anaheim as the two biggest unresolved cases with the clock running out.
Ottawa opens the season Oct. 3 in Toronto.
