Batherson steps up for Chabot in win over Washington, and teammates take note

OTTAWA — When Drake Batherson drops the gloves, his teammates take notice.

In just his third career fight, Batherson surprised a sellout crowd at Canadian Tire Centre Thursday afternoon when he sought retaliation for an ugly hit on teammate Thomas Chabot.

Midway through the first period of the Senators’ 4-3 win Thursday against the Washington Capitals, Justin Sourdif drove Chabot hard into the boards resulting in a nasty gash below the defenceman’s eye.

Minutes later, Batherson uncharacteristically dropped the gloves and took on Sourdif looking for payback.

“We’ve all got each other’s backs,” Batherson said. “I just figured it was right to do it.”

Batherson said he asked Sourdif in advance if he was willing to fight and he agreed. The two then had a good exchange about it in the penalty box.

The effort didn’t go unnoticed by Chabot or the rest of the team.

Chabot said the hit was largely his own fault. He was headed behind the net to go and clear the puck and didn’t expect Sourdif to come in so hard.

“I took if for granted that he wasn’t going to hit me,” Chabot said. “That’s a lesson, obviously, learned pretty hard unfortunately. But I love that (from) Drake. I told him he didn’t need to do that, but that shows you what kind of team we are.”

The Senators had been struggling of late, losers of their last three, played an uninspiring game on Monday and seemed to be headed for their fourth straight loss with the way they started the game against Washington.

Down 2-0 after the first head coach Travis Green gave his team a clear message during the intermission.

“I just didn’t think we were into the game,” Green said. “I just thought we weren’t playing to win. We were playing light. There wasn’t a lot of firmness, heaviness to our game. We were on the outside looking in and that’s really uncharacteristic of our team when we’re playing well.”

Green gave his team credit for turning things around and attributed Batherson’s scrap as the spark.

“If you want to win ultimate prizes you’ve got to get outside your comfort zone and do things that aren’t the norm,” Green said. “I was happy for Drake, proud of him that he stepped up and I thought that probably helped our group a lot.”

Aside from losing their last three the Senators are also without goaltender Linus UIlmark, who is taking a personal leave of absence.

Going into the game the Senators sat second last in the Eastern Conference, and finding a way to come from behind and not only tie the game but win it in regulation could help.

Ottawa is nearing the halfway mark of the season and has been far too inconsistent, making it difficult to gain ground in the highly contested Eastern Conference.

“Look, we believe in what we have in here,” said Chabot. “We know we have a hell of a hockey team. We have a lot of different tools in this locker room, and we stuck with each other…it’s a long season and we wanted to kick off the new year on the right way and I think we did that.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 1, 2026.