Ottawa Has Covered Every Angle on Batherson Except the One That Matters: Close the Deal

Two pieces ago I argued that letting Batherson walk would leave Ottawa with a roster vacuum it cannot fill. A week later I acknowledged the eight-year ask carries real risk for a rebuild that hasn't proven itself. Both of those things remain true. But we are now past the point of weighing pros and cons. Training camp is imminent, the CBA clock is ticking, and the Senators are still without a signed second-line right wing. At some point, analysis becomes procrastination. This is that point.

Here is what the numbers say about the hole Batherson fills: Tim Stutzle produced 50 points in 50 games last season, a pace that would rank among the league's elite forwards in any era. The next closest Senator was Batherson, at 44 points in 44 games — a nearly identical rate, but in a supporting role, not a starring one. That pairing is the entire offensive architecture of this team. Remove Batherson and you are left with Stutzle carrying the load alone, which is precisely the structural weakness that defined Ottawa's collapse in close games last season. Winning just 16 of 37 one-goal games is not a goaltending problem in isolation. It is a depth problem. It is what happens when your second scorer is gone and your third option is a significant step down.

The historical precedent here is instructive. Teams that trade or lose their franchise captain — as Ottawa did with Tkachuk in June — and then also allow their second-leading scorer to walk in the same offseason rarely recover quickly. The Pittsburgh Penguins of the late 2010s provide a cautionary parallel: every time they let a complementary scorer depart without a proven replacement, the burden on their top line compounded until the roster buckled. Ottawa is not the Penguins, and Batherson is not a Hall of Famer, but the structural logic is identical. You cannot subtract from a thin offense and expect the remaining pieces to absorb the loss.

The counterargument — the one I took seriously in my September 8th piece — is that eight years is a long commitment to a player who has never fully escaped the shadow of injury and inconsistency. That is fair. But look at what Ottawa is actually offering as an alternative. William Eklund is a bet on upside, not a proven NHL scorer. Dylan Cozens posted 36 points last season at minus-14, which tells you everything about how that line was being used. Shane Pinto, to his credit, chipped in 27 points in 40 games, but he is a center, not a right wing, and his role does not replicate what Batherson does on the power play alongside Stutzle. There is no internal replacement. There is no external one waiting in the wings that has been reported. The cupboard is not bare — it is just not stocked for this.

My declaration: Ottawa signs Batherson before the end of September, and the deal is longer than five years. The organization's leverage is gone. They traded Tkachuk. They are thin on the blue line with Sanderson's availability still uncertain and Zub's contract unresolved. They cannot afford to open a season having dismantled their captain and their second scorer in the same summer. The front office knows this. Batherson's camp knows this. The only question is how many years and how many dollars it takes to get there — and at this stage, the Senators are not in a position to win that negotiation.