Ottawa Senators dismiss GM Pierre Dorion after ‘negligent’ management cost club first-round pick

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

The Ottawa Senators dismissed general manager Pierre Dorion after parts of eight seasons on Wednesday just hours after an embarrassing punishment from the NHL 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 exit.

“We always talk about accountability,” newly minted Senators owner Michael Andlauer said. “At the end of the day, we are at fault about what transpired. We can argue about how harsh this penalty was but ultimately this could have been avoided … At the end of the day, we were downright negligent.”

Senators president of hockey operations Steve Staios, who has been on the job for just over a month, will hold the GM post on an interim basis. Staios, 50, was most recently an advisor in the Edmonton Oilers’ front office. Staios appeared to be in no rush to get moving on finding the club’s next GM, saying “we’re going to take a longer look at what our options might be and who might be available.” It’s entirely possible the interim tag is eventually removed and Staios maintains both titles.

In an enthralling and forthright press conference, Andlauer said he learned of the NHL’s decision to force the Sens to forfeit a first-round pick in either 2024, 2025 or 2026 last Tuesday. Under Dorion’s leadership, Ottawa failed to disclose to the Vegas Golden Knights in a 2021 trade that forward Evgenii Dadonov held a limited “no-trade” clause, which ultimately resulted in a future trade of Dadonov to Anaheim to be voided at the 2022 trade deadline.

“It gave me time to digest,” Andlauer said. “I went back and forth with the NHL on the ruling. I had to understand the dynamics and give people the benefit of the doubt. And ultimately, I came up with the decision, sat down with Steve later in the week, suggested I might be considering a move and discussing it with Pierre.

“Last night I sat down with Pierre and discussed the situation and how it couldn’t come with a lesser penalty [than his job] and we decided over dinner it would be best to part ways.”

Andlauer vowed for the Senators to be transparent and he delivered on Wednesday. He appeared visibly frustrated with the NHL’s penalties imparted over the past week, saying he was not informed about either Shane Pinto’s sports betting investigation – which first surfaced in the summer and resulted in a 41-game suspension – or the 591-day old Dadonov dispute, before his purchase of the team closed on Sept. 21. Both issues originated before he took control of the club.

“Maybe they didn’t want to disrupt [it] to make sure the seller got the best price possible,” Andlauer surmised.

Andlauer also said forfeiting a first-round pick was a “very strong price to pay” but “two teams wanted their pound of flesh” for a situation that “embarrassed the league and pissed off two clubs” – even though it was from way back in March 2022. He said the Eugene Melnyk estate viewed the lingering Dadonov investigation as a “non-issue.”

“I don’t know if first-rounders are a non-issue to you guys, but it is to me,” Andlauer said. “Why I inherited this is beyond me. Why it took a whole year? It was a two-day hearing. The commissioner had a lot of time to deliberate on it and think about it. There’s no reason for it to last this long.”

Some may have said the same about Dorion’s tenure, which was had strong moments but was littered with miscues. The Sens came within one goal of the Stanley Cup Final in 2017, losing to the Pittsburgh Penguins in Double OT in Game 7 that spring. He traded 23-year-old Mika Zibanejad for 29-year-old Derick Brassard in a push to go for the Cup. And Dorion landed his white whale that November when he traded five pieces – including the 2019 first-round pick that became Bowen Byram at No. 4 overall – in exchange for Matt Duchene.

Less than five months later, Dorion and the Sens were forced to acknowledge in a 67-point season that a full-scale rebuild was necessary. He traded away Dion Phaneuf and Brassard and then franchise centerpiece Erik Karlsson soon followed them out the door. There was also an awkward moment in 2018 when Dorion – who rarely made trades within his own division – moved Mike Hoffman to San Jose, only to see him be flipped to Florida minutes after for more than what Ottawa got from the Sharks in the first place.

Then-owner Melnyk promised Ottawa would spend to the cap from 2021 to 2025 during a five-year run of unparalleled success where the Sens would challenge for the Stanley Cup. Dorion did a mostly masterful job rebuilding the Sens’ roster at forward and defense over the last handful of years. He drafted and signed a core of promising players for the long term, but his young team experienced Failure to Launch on the ice. Off it, the Sens backed themselves into a corner this summer to the point where they couldn’t re-sign RFA forward Pinto, who was later suspended.

They’ve got an undeniably exciting young nucleus of stars including Brady Tkachuk, Jake Sanderson, Josh Norris, Thomas Chabot and Tim Stutzle – and little to show for it so far. 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. Dorion finished his tenure with a 225-261-59 record (.467 points percentage). Ten years from now, history will probably be kind to Dorion for his drafting and rebuilding under a notoriously mercurial owner, but there will also be an element of dysfunction difficult to overlook.

On Wednesday, Staios professed support for coach D.J. Smith, hinting there is no change coming there by saying players have “never cheated us on effort” under Smith’s watch. Staios says he’ll take over day-to-day operations but also keep an eye on the big picture.

“My first priority is to instill stability and confidence in the group,” Staios said. “We’ve been hit with a few things that we’ve had to deal with and it’s my job to give the players and staff the stability and confidence moving forward.”

Staios, a former NHL defenseman, has a long and successful history working with Andlauer. With Andlauer as owner and Staios as GM of Hamilton, the Bulldogs captured two OHL league championships. It took Andlauer just eight days to formally install Staios as team president after the sale was completed. With Andlauer’s purchase, speculation had run rampant in recent months that Dorion would be on the hot seat. Andlauer said Wednesday the changes made were “never anticipated.” But the start of this season has been less than smooth.

“Three game losing streak, three injuries and two disturbing phone calls from the league,” Andlauer said. “It brought me back to Earth.”

It’s an all-important year. And at a time when Andlauer and Staios might have wanted to pick their own man for the post, Wednesday’s punishment opened the door for them to do just that.