Within the next couple of weeks, Andlauer is expected to finalize his deal to buy the Ottawa Senators and announce changes.

Michael Andlauer is now in the home stretch of finalizing his summer purchase of the Ottawa Senators. Postmedia reported this week that the NHL’s executive committee recently approved Andlauer's bid to take over the franchise from Anna and Olivia Melnyk.

The road is now clear for Andlauer to become the majority owner of the team, but since he isn't doing this alone, his consortium's final paperwork needs a little extra finesse and possibly another investor or two. It'll get done soon, probably in the next two weeks.

All that said, there's little doubt that club control has already shifted to Andlauer, who's either orchestrated or, at least, signed off on most of the team's big changes this summer – some official, some not. 

And the Melnyks and their advisors are fine with that. Not only sellers in this transaction, they're about to enter a partnership with Andlauer, retaining a 10% share in the team. Since the day the agreement was reached in June, the Melnyks have had every reason to foster a great relationship with Andlauer, their conditional buyer and future partner.

So without officially being the owner, Andlauer was given the chance to, for example, approve the free agent signings of Vladimir Tarasenko, Joonas Korpisalo and Zack MacEwen. Andlauer will be the one inheriting these contracts, after all, and the league understands that.

Back in early July, a few weeks after the sale agreement, Andlauer almost certainly had a hand in the sudden resignation of Anthony LeBlanc, the club's President of Business Operations and Alternate Governor. Andlauer likely has his own man for that role and it may be Cyril Leeder, one of the club's founders. 

It's also believed Andlauer has his former colleague, Steve Staios, lined up with a top hockey executive role in Ottawa. As we reported in early August, Staios appears to have already left his job with the Edmonton Oilers. He was removed from the club's website right around the time the Oilers hired Jeff Jackson as CEO of Hockey of Operations.

And finally, TSN 1200 radio tweeted out (X'ed out?) this week that Sean Tierney from Sportlogiq has been hired as Ottawa's first full-time analytics guy.

Staios and Tierney both worked for Andlauer with the Hamilton Bulldogs, and reports of their hiring pretty much confirm that Andlauer is now making the decisions in Ottawa. Their apparent hirings, along with the probable (and very popular) returns of Leeder and Hall of Famer Daniel Alfredsson, will likely be announced around the time the sale is finalized.

And keep in mind, those are just the changes that have been leaked out to the media. How many others have not? How much more big news is still to come? That's now the big question. 

Not only are the current staff members riding the NHL's third-longest active playoff drought, they don't have history with Andlauer. The only confirmed deletion from the hockey operations roster so far has been assistant GM Trent Mann, but it's believed that Andlauer had nothing to do with that.

I spoke last week with a current member of the Senators hockey operations staff and, while he continues to happily work under the status quo, he said he's not sure yet where things stand for this season.

They say a new broom sweeps clean. It'll be interesting to just see if Andlauer has a deep house cleaning in mind or not.