Connor McDavid had five points. Leon Draisaitl had five points. The Edmonton Oilers beat the Carolina Hurricanes 6-5 in a shootout Thursday night.
Rogers Place still drew an announced crowd 1,927 below capacity.
Two nights later, 18,347 fans packed the arena to watch Edmonton lose 7-2 to the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Six home games into the season, the Oilers are 8-2-1. The attendance numbers suggest fans are picking their games more carefully.
“The norm since the home opener”
On Oct. 22, the day of the Carolina game, an Oilers fan posted on X about what his sons had been seeing from his seats at Rogers Place.
“My sons are using my seats while I am away and they say this has been the norm since the home opener,” he wrote.
Then he asked what plenty of fans have been asking: “Have the Oilers finally out priced ‘the tier 2’ fans??” He added that he said it “with a grain of salt.”
The post spread well beyond Edmonton. The next morning, Montreal broadcaster Jeremy Filosa of 98.5 Sports shared it in French. He wrote that despite “a blazing start to the season,” the Oilers haven’t been selling out, and asked whether Edmonton had “finally hit the limit” on ticket prices. His post passed 19,000 views.
The replies quickly turned to the Canadiens. Several Montreal fans said they’d stopped going to the Bell Centre because of the cost.
Saturday crowds are strong. Recent weeknights have fallen short.
Here’s every Oilers home game so far:
| Date | Day | Opponent | Result | Attendance | Full |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sept. 29 | Tuesday | Vancouver | L 6-5 OT | 18,347 | 100% |
| Oct. 3 | Saturday | Seattle | 18,070 | 98.5% | |
| Oct. 15 | Thursday | Utah | L 4-2 | 16,176 | 88.2% |
| Oct. 20 | Tuesday | Minnesota | W 4-3 OT | 17,032 | 92.8% |
| Oct. 22 | Thursday | Carolina | W 6-5 SO | 16,420 | 89.5% |
| Oct. 24 | Saturday | Toronto | L 7-2 | 18,347 | 100% |
Announced attendance. Rogers Place capacity for hockey is 18,347.
The home opener sold out, as it usually does. Since then, the gap has been clear.
The two Saturday games averaged 18,209 fans, or 99.2 per cent of capacity.
The three most recent weeknight games averaged 16,543, or 90.2 per cent.
That’s about 1,666 fewer fans a night. Together, those three weeknight games came in 5,413 below capacity.
It’s a small sample, and the opponent matters. But attendance has swung that much even while Edmonton has been winning.
Winning hasn’t guaranteed a full arena
The Oilers are 8-2-1. They won two of the three weeknight games with smaller crowds. McDavid has a point in all 11 games, with 33 points, according to NHL.com. Draisaitl already has 12 goals.
The most exciting game of the season, the Carolina shootout, drew the second-smallest crowd. The most lopsided loss, against Toronto, sold out.
With a start like that, the team’s record can’t explain the smaller crowds.
Why weeknights are a harder sell
A Saturday game is a night out. A Tuesday or Thursday game takes planning.
Fans have to get downtown after work, pay for parking and food, and get home late with work the next morning. Former season seat holders have said late nights are part of what wore them down.
Thursday’s Carolina game started shortly after 7 p.m. and didn’t finish until nearly 10 p.m. By the time fans got out of Rogers Place and made it home, it was late for anyone working Friday morning.
Then there’s the ticket. Former season seat holders have told us it was the regular-season cost, not just the playoff increases, that pushed them to give up their seats.
Six games aren’t enough to separate the reasons, and Toronto is a big draw any night of the week. But it helps explain why some fans are getting choosier.
The Formenton signing
Price and scheduling aren’t the only reasons fans have given for stepping away.
In September, the Oilers signed forward Alex Formenton to a one-year, US$850,000 contract. Formenton was one of five members of Canada’s 2018 world junior team charged with sexual assault in connection with an incident after a Hockey Canada event in London, Ont.
All five players were acquitted in 2025.
The NHL later reinstated them.
The signing still drew a backlash from some fans. Among them was Mary Loewen, the longtime superfan known as Mama Stanley for her sequined Stanley Cup costume. She said she won’t support the team while Formenton is with the organization.
Loewen started a Change.org petition asking the Oilers to reverse the signing. It has passed 70,000 signatures. The petition says it isn’t challenging Formenton’s acquittal. It argues fans can still disagree with the team’s decision, and it asks the Oilers to explain how they made it and set clearer standards for future signings.
The Oilers have defended the move, pointing to Formenton’s reinstatement and what they called “a lengthy due diligence process.” He has been in the lineup since, including Saturday’s game against Toronto, when he took a first-period roughing penalty.
No one knows how much the signing has affected attendance, and the crowd numbers can’t show why people stayed home. For fans like Loewen, the problem is the team’s decision, not the price of a ticket.
Where Edmonton ranks
Six games in, the Oilers average 17,399 fans a night, according to Hockey-Reference. That’s 94.8 per cent of capacity.
According to Hockey-Reference, that puts Edmonton 20th of 32 NHL teams in average attendance and 22nd by share of seats filled.
In 2024-25, the Oilers sold out all 41 home games.
Detroit and Calgary offer the next test
Both upcoming home games are on weeknights:
Monday, Oct. 26: Detroit Red Wings
Wednesday, Oct. 28: Calgary Flames
Detroit on a Monday in late October is the kind of game that hasn’t been selling.
Wednesday’s Battle of Alberta could be the more telling game. It’s the Flames’ first visit to Rogers Place this season, and Calgary is playing its final year at the Saddledome. It’s the kind of rivalry game that should draw a big crowd, even on a Wednesday.
A sellout would add to the evidence that certain matchups still pack the building. Another crowd below capacity would raise more questions about demand.
Either way, the next two games will show whether the early pattern holds.
We’ll update this story with both crowds.
Sources
NHL, Oilers vs. Hurricanes official game summary, Oct. 22, 2026: https://www.nhl.com/scores/htmlreports/20262027/GS020163.HTM
Hockey-Reference, Oilers vs. Wild box score, Oct. 20, 2026: https://www.hockey-reference.com/boxscores/202610200EDM.html
Hockey-Reference, NHL attendance, 2026-27: https://www.hockey-reference.com/friv/attendance.cgi
NHL.com, Maple Leafs vs. Oilers game recap, Oct. 24, 2026: https://www.nhl.com/news/toronto-maple-leafs-edmonton-oilers-game-recap-october-24-2026
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