More than a month after the Senators were eliminated from the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs, owner Michael Andlauer still finds himself thinking about what might have been.
He’s still not fully over the first-round loss to the Carolina Hurricanes.
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“It’s never over, because you look at it and they’re still playing,” Andlauer said Friday at the Senators’ alumni golf tournament at the Canadia Golf and Country Club . “You look at it and think ‘what if?’ (Game 2 of the Cup Final) went into overtime. In our Game 2, how many posts, crossbars or open chances did we have? ‘What if,’ right?”
But those lingering thoughts haven’t changed his big picture outlook. If anything, Andlauer sounds more convinced than ever that the Senators are doing things the right way and headed in the right direction.
“I think as a fan, I’m happy where we’re going,” he said.
Looking back on this season, Andlauer believes his club was stronger than last year’s squad. While the Senators’ playoff run was even shorter this year, Andlauer admired how his group rallied to earn a wild-card while pushing through so many battles.
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“We went through a lot of adversity this season, including in the playoffs, with how many injuries we had on the D-core, and we persevered.”
That resilience is something Andlauer clearly values, along with the positive culture that’s been created by GM Steve Staios and head coach Travis Green.
Asked what the team needs to do to take the next step, Andlauer didn’t talk about adding a specific kind of player or making a splashy move.
“I think continue to stay focused,” he said. “I think Steve and his staff are doing a fantastic job of continuously improving. It’s a very competitive league. (We need to) stay on track and continue to believe, make sure that the culture is right, that we care, and that we’re willing to work harder than our competition.”
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Staios and his amateur staff have been in Buffalo at the 2026 NHL Scouting Combine over the past week. The combine allows GMs to get a closer look at most of the best young prospects eligible for the NHL Draft later this month.
Until recently, the 2026 combine was an event that the Sens could easily have skipped because they didn’t have a first-round pick. It was the NHL’s punishment for their role in the 2021 Evgenii Dadonov trade controversy. But in March, after all this time, the league decided to let Ottawa pick in round one after all, though it will be 32nd overall.
“It’s good for us. It’s good for our organization. It’s good for our fans,” Andlauer said. “I think we had to show the league what kind of organization we are, a new owner and everything, just to make sure that (the league knows) we’re good corporate citizens. And I think maybe a little persistence went a long way.”
The league’s condition was that the pick could not be traded. When asked if they could make the pick and immediately trade the selected player to another team, Andlauer wasn’t sure but felt like they probably could.
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Meanwhile, with the salary cap set to spike over each of the next few seasons, Andlauer fielded questions about player payroll, and his answer should be encouraging for Senators fans.
“This is a passion of mine,” he said. “Whatever it’s going to take to bring a Cup to Ottawa.”
That doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll be throwing money around in free agency. In fact, Andlauer thinks the market may not offer many attractive options that make sense.
“Because there’s not enough free agents, I think people are going to want to do trades. And the fact that the cap is going up, I think there’s going to be people who are going to look at that as an opportunity.”
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Andlauer emphasized that there’s no urgency to change the game plan that has brought the Senators back to the playoffs the past two years, but he doesn’t rule out offseason improvements either.
“I think there are areas that (Staios) wants to improve on,” Andlauer said. “And he’s focused on those things.”
So, to summarize Andlauer’s hockey views on Friday: He believes the Senators are stronger than they were a year ago, offseason changes are possible, he’s prepared to spend what’s required, he’s happy to have his first-round pick back, and management has his full support.
One suspects that if the Senators fail to emerge as a legitimate Stanley Cup contender in the next couple of years, it won’t be because the owner failed to do his part.
And for Sens fans, that’s a nice change of pace.
By Steve Warne
The Hockey News
Read the full article here
