After going with an interim GM since Pierre Dorion was let go, the Senators have their new GM in place. Instead of hiring someone else, they announced that they have lifted the interim tag from Steve Staios, officially naming him to the role of general manager and president of hockey operations. Meanwhile, assistant GM Ryan Bowness has been promoted to associate GM. The Sens have also added to their front office, appointing Dave Poulin as their senior vice-president of hockey operations.
Staios joined Ottawa earlier this season following Michael Andlauer’s purchase of the team being made official. He originally came over as their president of hockey operations, but after the Sens lost a first-round pick for failing to disclose Evgenii Dadonov’s no-trade clause to Vegas when they traded him there (later nixing a trade the Golden Knights made with Anaheim), Dorion was relieved of his duties with Staios adding interim GM duties to his responsibilities at the beginning of November.
During his time in that role, Staios brought in Jacques Martin as a consultant but later elevated him to interim head coach when D.J. Smith was fired. At the time, the logic made sense in that saddling a new GM with a more permanent coaching hire might not be the best course of action. Now that Staios will be the chief decision maker, he can start to assess options for who will get that opportunity down the road. The expectation is that the 71-year-old Martin will be behind the bench for the remainder of the regular season.
Bowness joined the Sens a little less than a year and a half ago after working in Pittsburgh as their director of professional scouting. He is also GM of Ottawa’s AHL affiliate in Belleville, something that is likely to remain the case even as he takes on other responsibilities with his elevated title.
As for Poulin, he last worked in a front office nearly a decade ago. He had a five-year stint as VP of hockey operations from 2009-14 while also being their AHL GM for two of those seasons. Since then, the long-time NHL forward has worked in the media.
TSN’s Darren Dreger notes that Andlauer had sought to replicate the managerial structure that Montreal has. Andlauer had been a minority owner of the Canadiens before purchasing the Sens. While this front office isn’t shaped exactly the same way as Montreal’s, it now has been augmented with the addition of Poulin and Bowness taking on expanded duties.
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