Players aren’t worried about empty seats during playoffs

The only red Ottawa Senators flags raised Friday surrounded the club’s attendance.

Less than 24 hours after the Senators failed to sell out the Canadian Tire Centre on Thursday night, when there were approximately 1,800 empty seats for Game 1 of a Round 2 series against the New York Rangers, even the players were being asked about the issue Friday as they met with the media.

Empty seats have been an issue for a large part of the season but the crowd of 16,744 set off alarm bells across the country because it’s not very often a Canadian building isn’t full during the playoffs and, as a result, the market is under the microscope.

The Senators have enough to worry about in trying to beat the Rangers; they don’t have time to concern themselves with how many people are at their home games.

“You see (the empty seats) in warm-up and right when the start of the game is, and then it’s just out of your mind,” said goaltender Craig Anderson Friday. “You don’t even think about it after that. Earlier start time than normal for our weekday games, so I just chalked it up to that people just weren’t here yet.”

Anderson said he wasn’t concerned that the seats weren’t filled.

“You’re focused on what’s going on inside the glass. You block out pretty much anything that’s going on outside what’s relevant for you.”

Captain Erik Karlsson took notice of the crowd for Game 1 of the series. “It is what it is,” he told reporters. “That’s something that we, as players, can’t control. We go out there every day to do the best that we can for this team and this city. Whatever reason it was for not being full, is again, I have no knowledge of.”

The reality is that, on Friday afternoon, the building was already nearly sold out for Game 2 Saturday afternoon, so Game 1 may have just been a blip on the radar screen with the games only getting more meaningful from here on.

However, new team president Tom Anselmi must focus on raising the season-ticket base.

The Senators haven’t made the number public in recent years, but they’ve got a lot of inventory to move every night. The lack of sales is a large part of the reason why there have been changes in the front office in recent months, with president Cyril Leeder and marketing officer Peter O’Leary both shown the door.

It should be noted that the playoffs aren’t something owner Eugene Melnyk and his stuff budget for when they sit down yearly to decide on payroll and the expenditures for the organization.