New Sens Owner Says NHL Withheld Information from Him During Sale of Team

Michael Andlauer, who bought the Ottawa Senators just over a month ago, held a news conference today in the wake of two major incidents involving the team. The first was Shane Pinto getting suspended for 41 games for the misuse of a gambling app. The latest, which came to a conclusion today, was Ottawa losing its first round pick in one of the next three years for botching the Evgenii Daonov trade to the Vegas Golden Knights back in 2021. While investigations into both incidents began months ago, Andlauer says he wasn't told about either by the NHL until the sale of the team officially went through on September 21st.

Andlauer paid close to $1 billion for the Senators (around $950 million in total), and no one told him beforehand that the team was wrapped up in two major investigations by the league? This seems like a terrible way to welcome a new owner to the organization. It's mind-boggling that the NHL didn't feel he should have access to that information before making a purchase involving that much money.

Andlauer let go of Ottawa's general manager Pierre Dorion during the news conference. Dorion traded Dadonov to Vegas in 2021 without informing the Golden Knights of a 10-team no-trade list that Dadonov was given by Dorion in his newest contract. Vegas didn't find out about it until trading Dadonov to Anaheim a year later, which led to the exchange being cancelled as the Ducks were one of the 10 teams on Dadonov's list.

The new owner also threw some shade T the NHL after the length of time this investigation took.