Senators owner Andlauer embraces underdog mentality ahead of playoffs
In less than two years, Senators owner Michael Andlauer has transformed Ottawa into a playoff team. Now, ahead of a potential Battle of Ontario against the Leafs, the self-made billionaire feels right at home.
Michael Andlauer is living his best life.
On Thursday, he was walking the grounds of Augusta National with his two sons, up close and personal with the best golfers in the world playing The Masters. Where we all wanted to be that day.
“It’s like a cathedral there — the grass is perfect,” Andlauer said. “It’s just such a great walk. My dogs are barking right now.”
One day later and the owner of the Ottawa Senators was back in the Canadian capital on Friday to watch the first hockey game since his team clinched a playoff berth — facing, as fate would have it, the Montreal Canadiens team that once counted Andlauer among its minority owners.
In a lounge at ice level, Andlauer tells a small group of Ottawa media how he fell in love with this Senators team, which he came to own in the fall of 2023. How quickly did this Montreal native form a real allegiance with his new team?
“The day I had to fork out that big cheque,” he says, laughing. Andlauer is the majority partner in a group that paid the Eugene Melnyk estate about $950 million for the franchise.
“It was real.”
So is Andlauer, a big man who commands a room. He’s expressive and forthcoming, quick to smile, but so intense about his hockey he has no interest in socializing during a Sens game.
“Gary Bettman (the NHL commissioner) noticed that when we were together and he respected the fact that I just wanted to watch the game,” Andlauer says.
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He tells us that he still gets those pinch-me moments, as would any childhood fan who grows up to own an NHL team against all odds.
“You realize you’re the guy who grew up on the other side of the tracks in Montreal, raised by your mom, that you never thought you’d be in this position,” Andlauer says. “And then you are. And you kind of say, ‘OK, now you have a responsibility.’”
Ottawa was the perfect landing spot for this self-made billionaire. As one of the smallest markets in the league, Ottawa has always been Canada’s most underrated franchise. Andlauer embraced that as a new owner.
“It was easy to fall in love with this team, starting with the city,” Andlauer says. “I think you’ve heard me say it before. This city fits me more than the larger cities, maybe because I’ve always been the underdog. It’s kind of neat that we’re going into these playoffs as the underdog.”
General manager Steve Staios, who took a good young core and added several vital pieces, has also tapped into that dark horse theme.
“We’re underdogs and we’re OK with that,” Staios said this week as the Senators prepared to close out the regular season, almost certain to finish in the first wild-card spot after Friday’s 5-2 victory over the Canadiens.
Staios was the first person Andlauer called when the Senators clinched their berth, walking through a side door when the Habs beat Detroit on Tuesday night.
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Andlauer and Staios have waged hockey wars in the OHL and AHL, and won championships together. They had a pact that if Andlauer ever became a majority owner of an NHL team, he would hire Staios to run it.
Now here they are, presiding over a playoff contender in their second season.
The process hasn’t been all that different from their junior days together, Andlauer says, bringing an operation to a more professional level, top to bottom.
To quote Staios: “We needed to change the level of accountability throughout the organization.”
Andlauer lauds Staios for his veteran player additions, “not just people who had won, it’s people that had character, the right kind of character, to be mentors for this young, great core we have.”
Staios had the gumption to land No. 1 goaltender Linus Ullmark in a trade during the 2024 Stanley Cup final, sprinkled in other veterans like David Perron, Michael Amadio and Nick Cousins and pulled off a deadline deal for second-line centre Dylan Cozens.
In head coach Travis Green, Staios hired someone that could embody what he was trying to establish, the owner says.
If Staios was Andlauer’s first phone call after qualifying for the post-season, his second was to captain Brady Tkachuk. Andlauer thought to himself – Brady must be so excited!
“And so I reached out to him and just told him how happy I was for him, in light of everything he’s gone through and to be in this position now,” Andlauer says.
Tkachuk, though nursing an injury that has him sidelined, is expected to be the face of Ottawa’s playoff push. Along with defenceman Jake Sanderson, Tkachuk had his coming out party at the 4 Nations Face-Off.
“He is everything that Ottawa fans believe in him, he cares so much, both on and off the ice,” Andlauer says of his captain.
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The owner contacted defenceman Thomas Chabot as well — the other player to have logged more than 500 games while enduring no small amount of pain, both emotional and physical, for this organization.
“They were drafted here… they’re hungry for the playoffs and now they can taste it,” he says.
Andlauer is no less pleased for Senators fans to finally see some playoff hockey again after an eight-year drought.
“I’ve said, the fans are our lifeblood,” Andlauer says. “And I am a fan. That moment (of clinching a playoff spot) was like, wow, we did it.”
‘Bring on the Leafs’
Prodded about a preferred playoff opponent, Andlauer played it cool, ceding to president Cyril Leeder’s comment that it’s “bad karma” to wish for a matchup.
Still, Andlauer quickly added: “If I’m wearing my fan fat, bring on the Leafs! Please.”
The owner was still wearing that fan hat when he declared the infamous Ridly Greig slap shot into the empty net of the Maple Leafs last season as his “favourite moment.” He made it a key part of his season-ending address to his players.
“It was more of a statement about their fans than Toronto’s team, because we had so many Leafs fans in our building,” Andlauer says. “I talked to (Greig) and you know sometimes in these situations I think players have blackouts and don’t know what they did.
“But for me, it’s a great rivalry and that’s the beauty of the game, right? It’s building these rivalries and making our city proud.”
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The city is amped up, there is no doubt. Even the Canadian Tire Centre security guards are high-fiving Andlauer about the coming playoffs.
This week, the ‘Sens Mile’ signs were erected on Elgin Street as the team’s party place and Andlauer proudly noted that his daughter, who manages a merchandise outlet, announced that Senators car flags were completely sold out.
Andlauer longs for the day when his building is, too, not from walk-up buyers but season ticket holders — the best defence against invading hordes of Leafs and Habs fans.
“Frankly, our players don’t like to have all these (enemy) fans in the building and I don’t like it,” Andlauer says. “With more season tickets, we will outnumber those fans and drown out the noise. That’s the objective. This building did have 11,000, 12,000 season-ticket holders before. We’ll get there. I’m in no rush.
“But making the playoffs is going to help that.”
