Senators fire GM Pierre Dorion after eight seasons at the helm

There’s new leadership incoming in Canada’s capital.

Sources told Daily Faceoff the Ottawa Senators fired general manager Pierre Dorion on Wednesday after parts of eight seasons on the heels of an embarrassing punishment from the NHL that stripped the Sens of a future first-round pick for mismanagement of a player’s negotiated “no-trade” clause. Dorion, 51, was the seventh-longest tenured GM in the league at the time of his dismissal.

Newly installed Senators president of hockey operations Steve Staios is expected to announce the news Wednesday afternoon in Ottawa, less than three hours after news of the NHL’s penalty landed. It’s not clear yet who will replace Dorion, though Staios could be tasked with the role on an interim basis. Staios was most recently an advisor in the Edmonton Oilers front office.

The former NHL defenseman has a long and successful history working with Andlauer. With Andlauer as owner and Staios as GM of OHL Hamilton, the Bulldogs captured two league championships. Andlauer closed on the sale of the Senators on Sept. 21 and formally installed Staios as team president just eight days later.

Andlauer said at the NHL’s Board of Governors meeting on Oct. 4 that Staios was beginning to evaluate the entire Senators hockey operations department.

“I see some gaps as opportunities,” Andlauer said when asked about beefing up the Sens. “But Steve understands my way of thinking, we’ve worked together for many years and he’s already deep in it already.”

With Andlauer’s purchase, speculation had run rampant in recent months that Dorion would be on the hot seat. This season in particular has gotten off to a rocky start. The Sens made their own salary cap complications that led to RFA forward Shane Pinto remaining unsigned into the season. Last week, Pinto was subsequently suspended 41 games sports betting activity.

Dorion did a mostly masterful job rebuilding the Sens’ roster across just about every position over the last handful of years, and he drafted and signed a core of promising players for the long term, but the team has failed to take off on the ice. A 6-12-1 start last year sunk their season and playoff hopes. This year, the Sens jumped out to a 3-1 mark, but lost three straight and now sit at 4-4-0. It’s an all-important year. And at a time when Andlauer and Staios might have wanted to install their own man at the post, Wednesday’s punishment opened the door for them to do just that.