Michael Andlauer

Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch is reporting that the Ottawa Senators will play two exhibition games at the Videotron Centre in Quebec City as part of their training camp this upcoming fall. It is expected that one of those games will be against the Montreal Canadiens, while the other is unknown. Senators owner Michael Andlauer has talked about his interest in growing the Senators’ reach in Quebec City and surrounding areas and likely sees an opportunity to grow the team’s fan base outside of the Capital Region. Andlauer visited the Videotron Centre last fall and was impressed with the 18,259-seat arena.

Quebec City’s Videotron Centre has played host to the Quebec Ramparts of the QMJHL since its opening in 2015 and has yet to have an NHL tenant. The Los Angeles Kings did have part of their training camp there his past year, but the building remains an NHL-caliber arena without an NHL-calibre team. The Kings hosted two exhibition games there in the fall of 2024 against the Boston Bruins and Florida Panthers

Ottawa will likely open its skates to the public to increase its reach in the area and will reportedly participate in several community events during the season.

Quebec City hasn’t had an NHL team since the Quebec Nordiques departed for Colorado back in 1995. They have taken all of the appropriate steps to land an NHL team but remain an underdog as the NHL has preferred to expand south of the border in recent years and will likely continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

Andlauer also spoke about the possibility that the Senators are looking at Quebec City for a potential move if their negotiations for a new arena continue to drag out. The Senators owner was emphatic in denying that possibility, telling reporters that he loves the Ottawa-Gatineau area and the team’s supporters.

Last November, the NHL ruled that the Senators must forfeit one of their first-round selections in either the 2024, 2025, or 2026 drafts due to their failure to disclose Evgenii Dadonov’s no-trade clause when they traded him to Vegas in 2021.  The issue came to light less than a year later when the Golden Knights tried to flip him to Anaheim at the 2022 trade deadline, a team that was on that no-trade list.  (He eventually was moved to Montreal later that summer.)  Management in Vegas was understandably displeased about the matter and asked the league to investigate, eventually leading to the penalty to Ottawa.

The last time the NHL took this step was with New Jersey and their initial 17-year contract to Ilya Kovalchuk, a deal that was later reworked to a 15-year agreement.  The Devils were fined $3MM and stripped of a first-round pick between 2011 and 2014.  They elected not to forfeit in the first three years and in 2014, after Kovalchuk left the team, New Jersey successfully lobbied the league for a lesser penalty; half the funds were returned and instead of losing the first-rounder outright, it was moved to the back of the first round.

It appears that Senators owner Michael Andlauer is hoping that history will repeat itself with his franchise.  In an appearance on Amazon’s Monday Night Hockey earlier this week (video link), he lobbied for similar relief when it comes to Ottawa’s penalty:

It is what is it, we move forward, it was before my time. I accept a lot of deliberation went through. I just hope that being good citizens we can get the same type of relief New Jersey did some years ago with a similar situation.

The team elected not to forfeit the pick in this year’s draft, instead selecting defenseman Carter Yakemchuk seventh overall in June.  The Sens currently sit 25th in the overall standings and if they wind up finishing the season somewhere around there, it stands to reason that they’ll keep their 2025 selection, push the penalty to 2026, and hope for relief from the league at that time.

However, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman told reporters including Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch earlier this month that he has no inclination to lessen the penalty on the Senators.  Of course, things can change between now and then but it certainly doesn’t appear to be trending in that direction for now.

It’s worth noting that the pick that Ottawa has to forfeit must be their own selection and not one acquired from another team.  That means that if they trade one of their 2025 or 2026 picks, it would lock in them forfeiting the other one as things stand.  That will likely play an impact in trade talks as they look to acquire help on their back end as those selections are trade chips that are probably off the table in discussions.

5:00 PM: The NHL has now officially announced that Andlauer’s purchase of the Senators has been unanimously approved by the NHL’s Board of Governors.

1:08 PM: Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun reported that, per his sources, Michael Andlauer and partners are set to officially sign for the sale of the Ottawa Senators on Thursday. This concludes what’s turned into a bit of a saga, following the Senators’ official offering of the club 10 months ago.

A slew of potential future owners of the Senators came forward in those 10 months, including a bidding group led by music artists Snoop Dogg and The Weeknd and one involving actor Ryan Reynolds. Other names rumored to be involved at one point or another included Toronto-based brothers Jeffery and Michael Kimel, founders of Harlo Entertainment.

But in the end, it was a part-owner of the Montreal Canadiens that stepped forward with the winning bid. As part of his journey to own the Senators, Andlauer had to complete a sale of his 10 percent stake in the Canadiens – with majority owner Geoff Molson purchasing those shares.

Andlauer’s bidding group includes Anna and Olivia Melnyk – daughters of the late Eugene Melnyk who will maintain a 10 percent stake in the team – Ottawa-based businessman Jeff York, the Ottawa real estate-based Malhorta family, the Toronto-based investment group Yorkville Asset Management, owners of Alinea Group Holdings Paul and Michael Paletta, and Rocco Tullio: the owner of the Oshawa Generals.

The group came together to offer a $950MM (USD) bid, $150MM more than a Forbes valuation that was cited by many outlets during much of the sale’s journey. This marks the highest price an NHL team has ever sold for.

Andlauer and his team are expected to announced as the official fourth owners in franchise history at a press conference on Friday, barring any last minute hiccups, per Garrioch.