Drake Batherson scored a hat trick on the night the Senators handed out free hats, and the internet has decided this is either destiny or a con job. It's neither. The breakdown of his three goals makes that clear.
His first came off a clean feed from Jake Sanderson, a real shot, blocker side, on purpose. His second was Dylan Cozens finding him alone in front and Batherson lifting it over the goaltender, also on purpose. Only his third, the empty-netter, was the fluke everyone's talking about: he blocked an Adam Fox point shot and it caromed the length of the ice into the open cage. One goal in three was an accident. The other two were just a good player finishing plays that were drawn up to be finished. Batherson himself called it a "weird one" and said he'd "take it for sure," which is about the right amount of self-awareness from a guy who knows exactly which of his three goals he should brag about and which one he got away with.
Call it a fun coincidence worth enjoying: a hat trick that ties him for the most home hat tricks in franchise history, on a night the building was handing out rope hats. Pretending the empty-netter cheapens the first two goals is killjoy nonsense. Give the man his night.
RatingThe complaint that holds up is about the game itself: a 7-4 final that felt uglier and tighter than the score suggests, with New York clawing a three-goal deficit down to one before Ottawa pulled away late. Ottawa didn't play a clean, dominant 60 minutes. But "the Senators were sloppy" and "Batherson's hat trick was fake" are two different arguments, and only one of them is true.
The real reason this game looked gettable for New York at times is who they had in net. Dylan Garand was making his seventh straight start and had now allowed at least five goals in back-to-back outings, with Igor Shesterkin out for the rest of the season with a knee injury. That's a Rangers team playing playoff-caliber hockey in front of a goalie who shouldn't be carrying this much of the workload this early, and it'll keep producing nights like this one until New York settles its net situation.
On Ottawa's side, Johansson, making his Senators debut in place of the injured Linus Ullmark, held up fine behind a defense that let things get looser than it should have. That's just where both of these teams are right now, twelve and thirteen games into a long season.
Batherson's two real goals deserve every bit of credit they're getting, and the one lucky bounce doesn't owe anybody an asterisk. What should worry the Rangers is burning through their backup goaltender on a six-game road losing streak. That has nothing to do with rope hats or hockey gods.
