NHL attendance analysis: Biggest risers and fallers year-over-year

The two-month mark of the regular season allows us to get a pretty good snapshot of the league as a whole.

We’re starting to debate regular season award winners.

Teams are starting to settle into familiar spots in the weekend rankings.

So this is also the perfect time to analyze attendance figures for the first time in the 2023-24 regular season.

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Every NHL team — with the exception of the Chicago Blackhawks — has played at least 10 home games, so it provides us with a pretty good sample size to work with right now. And Chicago is currently sitting at nine home games and will play four times at the United Center this week.

We’ll analyze the attendance numbers in two separate ways here in early December.

The first will group teams into three tiers based on how close they are playing to a full house on a nightly basis so far this season.

The second will be a look at home attendance figures from the exact same point last season — in early December — allowing for a direct comparison for each franchise. From there, we will be able to see which teams have made the biggest gains and losses year-over-year.

There are a couple of disclaimers for our readers ahead of analyzing these attendance figures.

Tier One: Guaranteed sellouts

Nearly half the league finds themselves in this tier, with 15 teams at 99 percent capacity or better for home games in the first two months of the regular season.

The most pleasant surprise on this list is the New Jersey Devils, who have vaulted themselves into the upper echelon of attendance numbers in the league.

The Carolina Hurricanes continue to impress at the box office with another season of capacity crowds showing up to PNC Arena. When Rod Brind’Amour took over coaching that team before the 2018-19 season, Carolina was only averaging 13,321 fans per game. The Hurricanes are a prime example of how a winning product on the ice is usually the best form of marketing.

And considering their respective programs are headed in unknown directions this season, fans of the Minnesota Wild, Nashville Predators and St. Louis Blues deserve a lot of credit for packing their rinks on a nightly basis.

Tier Two: Strong showings

It’s certainly not surprising to see teams like the Pittsburgh Penguins and Edmonton Oilers at the top of this list considering the star power on their rosters.

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And the Blackhawks find themselves in the middle of this grouping too, thanks largely to the injection of Connor Bedard into their lineup. But the most encouraging sign might be seeing teams like the Florida Panthers, New York Islanders and Ottawa Senators — who have been plagued with attendance issues for several seasons — find their way onto this list.

Tier Three: Some empty seats

These are the teams playing to less than 90 percent capacity so far this season. Calgary is just under the 90 percent threshold here, so it’s certainly not a dire situation. But with a new arena not coming until 2026-27, they might need to enjoy a lot more success on the ice to attract full houses to the Saddledome in the next couple of seasons.

It’s certainly jarring to see Winnipeg at the bottom when it comes to attendance capacity, especially when they play inside one of the smallest venues in the league. Given the way San Jose has started this season, it’s hard to blame San Jose Sharks fans for staying away from watching that product in person. And while the Buffalo Sabres end up in this tier, there is certainly some reason for optimism on the attendance front in Buffalo as you read below.

Year-over-year analysis

We can finally look at some comparable numbers year-over-year, after the COVID-19 pandemic really skewed attendance figures in three consecutive seasons. The 2019-20 season was halted in March 2020. The 2020-21 calendar featured a 56-game schedule in which many teams played in front of empty buildings. And the 2021-22 season still saw some Canadian-based teams playing in front of reduced crowds at times.

Now we finally have some apples-to-apples comparisons for attendance numbers. And for the most part, this paints a fairly upbeat picture of attendance in the NHL. Only four clubs are showing a true dip in attendance when we compare their home attendance from last December to this one.

Year-per-year comparison

Biggest climbers

Chicago Blackhawks: +3,005 fans/game (18.9 percent increase)

This one really shouldn’t come as a huge surprise, as Chicago fans purchased $2.5 million worth of tickets 90 minutes after the team won the lottery to draft Bedard in the spring. The United Center has seen a significant boost in attendance over the first two months of the season.

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But our Chicago beat writer Mark Lazerus is skeptical that this trend will continue for the duration of the 2023-24 regular season.

“The Blackhawks’ attendance jump can be attributed almost exclusively to Bedard, whose No. 98 is now as ubiquitous among the United Center faithful as 88 and 19 have been for the previous 16 years. The question is, can the Bedard bump last all season, or is interest already waning given how poorly the Blackhawks are performing as a team?” writes Lazerus. “There were just 17,070 fans at the Seattle game last week, the smallest crowd of the season. And a Sunday matinee against the rival Blues only drew 18, 233 — big numbers for most rinks, but not the cavernous United Center, where anything below 20,000 was unheard of during the glory days. Those are the two lowest totals of the young season. A four-game homestand this week will be telling.”

New Jersey Devils: +2,511 fans/game (18.1 percent increase)

The Devils have authored one of the great turnaround stories at the box office. Last season, the Devils stumbled out of the gate with four straight home games featuring crowds of fewer than 12,000 fans in October. But they’ve started with nine sellouts in their first 12 games at the Prudential Center this season.

New Jersey is on pace to have their highest home attendance in more than a decade — their best showing since the year following their Stanley Cup Final appearance in 2012.

Florida Panthers: +2,369 fans/game (15.0 percent increase)

The Panthers are reaping the rewards of two highly successful seasons on the ice. In 2021-22, the club captured its first President’s Trophy. And last year, Florida went on a remarkable postseason run that led to them making an appearance in the Stanley Cup Final.

In the three seasons leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Panthers were averaging only 13,739 fans per home game. With a new energy around the franchise, they’ve sold out four games this season against Toronto, Chicago, Edmonton and Boston and are bringing in more than 18,000 fans to Amerant Bank Arena.

“It’s been pretty crazy. The days of going and having 6,000 or 7,000 fans at a game are long gone in Florida,” Panthers forward Sam Reinhart told The Athletic recently. “We’ve been competitive the last couple of years and it’s aided that. But the marketing team has been great in Florida.”

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Buffalo Sabres: +2,029 fans/game (14.9 percent increase)

The Sabres might be near the bottom when it comes to capacity, but they are certainly moving their way up when compared to last season’s numbers.

In December 2022, the Sabres were dead last in NHL attendance (13,634) and capacity (71.5 percent). This year, they’ve managed to slide past Anaheim, Winnipeg and San Jose in average attendance and out of the basement in that category. And being one of four teams to boast an increase of at least 2,000 fans per game is tangible evidence things appear to be headed in the right direction in this area.

Buffalo has still had three games with sub-14,000 crowds this season, so they’re not entirely out of the woods yet. But after missing the playoffs by a single point last year, the market has proven they are simply starving for a playoff-caliber squad on the ice. Enduring a 12-year postseason drought means that any criticism for low attendance should be lobbed at the organization — not the fan base.

Los Angeles Kings: +1,949 fans/game (12.2 percent increase)

Los Angeles has also made a strong push here, when comparing their attendance numbers to last season at this time. And our Kings beat writer Eric Stephens doesn’t know which factor deserves the most credit for the rise in attendance at Crypto.com Arena.

“I’m not sure there is one specific reason for the Kings’ attendance boost other than to say this is a franchise that’s now operating under its highest expectations since the years where they were a regular in the playoffs and won a couple Stanley Cups,” writes Stephens. “The offseason moves to acquire PL Dubois and Cam Talbot don’t exactly scream for people that haven’t been season ticket holders to start throwing down their dollars for ducats. But they’re a club with a combination of iconic Cup-winning favorites, high-performing name veterans that have become core pieces and young players now making a major impact. It’s a good concoction that’s now looking to win playoff series and put together a lengthy postseason run.”

Biggest declines

Winnipeg Jets: -1,269 fans/game (9.1 percent decrease)

Outside of Mullet Arena, the Jets play at the smallest venue in the NHL, so their inability to fill Canada Life Centre has become an interesting talking point. This is a wild tumble to the bottom for a team that used to require a waiting list for season tickets. As our Jets beat reporter Murat Ates points out, the Jets sold out 32 of 36 home games in 2019-20. This season, however, they don’t have a single sellout to their credit, despite games against the likes of Connor McDavid, Connor Bedard and the defending Stanley Cup champion Vegas Golden Knights.

“A lot of markets can blame pandemic economics for the slide in their ticket sales, but Winnipeg’s reduction has been extreme,” writes Ates. “Why might Winnipeg be uniquely affected? A smaller regional fan base would be one item. Another is that the Jets sell a smaller percentage of their season tickets to corporate interests than other markets do. The ebb and flow of ticket sales is more closely connected to the day-to-day economics of the individuals, families, and friend groups who make season ticket commitments. There is also a perception that True North got complacent when the building was full, without fail, every single night: Fans who have stopped renewing their old tickets have cited customer service and game day presentation among their reasons. I guess that those fans’ experiences are lived, painful, and real, while Winnipeg’s dependence on people and not corporations for season tickets makes the Jets uniquely vulnerable to economic swings.”

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Washington Capitals: -1,293 fans/game (7.0 percent decrease)

This might rank as the biggest surprise, considering Washington has been one of the good storylines of the season. The Capitals are holding down a playoff spot in the highly competitive Eastern Conference, a position few thought they would be occupying into December.

Truth be told, there isn’t really much reason for concern here. Washington has only had one game with fewer than 16,000 fans in attendance at Capital One Arena this season and that was a showdown with the lowly Sharks that drew 15,856.

The Capitals have been a consistent box office draw during the Alex Ovechkin era, finishing second in attendance as recently as the 2021-22 season when they averaged 18,573 fans per game. After a remarkable 15-year run, there was bound to be a small market correction in Washington and that’s what we appear to be seeing in the first two months of the regular season.

If the Capitals maintain this attendance for the rest of the regular season, it would mark the first time since 2007-08 — the first year Ovechkin qualified for the playoffs — that Washington would finish a season drawing fewer than 18,000 fans on a nightly basis.

(Top photo: Andrew Mordzynski / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

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