Less than 24 hours before his team hosts the Montreal Canadiens in the Scotiabank NHL 100 Classic at Lansdowne Park in Ottawa, Senators’ owner Eugene Melnyk discussed the possibility of relocating his franchise out of Canada’s capital city.

Melnyk ruled out the prospect of selling the team, and while no move is expected in the near future, Melnyk kept the door open for a potential move.

“That’s always a possibility in any franchise,” Melnyk said at Parliament Hill before the Senators’ Alumni game. “If you open a grocery store and nobody comes to your store, but two blocks down you put a store in and there’s a lineup outside, where are you going to have your store?”

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Melnyk’s frustrations stem from a number of issues, ranging from attendance to revenue to the team’s poor start to the season. Just months removed from the Eastern Conference Final, the Senators (10-13-7) have the second-worst record in the conference.

Consequentially, fans haven’t been flocking to see the Sens play at the Canadian Tire Centre in the southwest suburb of Kanata. Through 15 home games this season, the Senators averaged 16,849 in attendence, 25th best in the NHL according to ESPN. Melnyk says that ticket sales have been an issue for a while and that the team’s poor start isn’t a direct correlation to a problem that was evident last season as well.

“We’re fighting every day to sell a ticket,” Melnyk said. “When you get to the third round of the playoffs and you’re begging people to buy a ticket, something’s wrong with that vision.”

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One potential solution is building a new stadium in Ottawa. The Senators have had talks about a new arena on the LeBreton Flats downtown, but Melnyk didn not show a lot of confidence in that being a viable option on Friday.

“I’m all in, but it wouldn’t be a disaster for us at all if LeBreton didn’t happen,” Melnyk said. “We’re just basically sitting it out, working through it with the NCC, they’ve been cooperative and reasonable and we’re just going to try to continue to get that completed. I don’t trust anything happening.”

While a new arena seems unlikely, Melnyk admitted that he and his management team need to make improvements at their current home to better the fan experience, but also challenged the citizens of Ottawa to support the team or risk losing it down the road.

“I think the market here has to prove itself, otherwise you do have to make changes,” Melnyk said. “We’ve cut everything to the bone in the organization and we are probably one of the thinnest management groups that you have in the league now. The next place that you have to look at is players.”

Statements like that further cloud the future of Senators’ captain Erik Karlsson, who is set for a major pay-day as a free agent at the end of the 2018-19 season. Melnyk said that he wants to keep great players, but that he also couldn’t continue to underwrite the franchise if it didn’t make enough revenue to afford them. When pressed further on Karlsson specifically, Melnyk said that general manager Pierre Dorion would come to him when he and his team had prepared an offer.

“We’re trying our best and Pierre is doing an awesome job, Guy (Boucher) is doing his best,” Melnyk said. “It just all has to click. We have way too much talent with this team, way too much, not to perform.”

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Despite that, Melnyk believes the team, which has lost five of their last six games, will snap out of its current funk. He remains positive that the team is going to find its form of last year and most importantly, put on a great show outdoors for their fans Saturday night.

“The main thing is, right now, we’re totally focused on the next two points,” Melnyk said. “You’ve got to take little baby steps in winning. It’s a very different attitude in the city and around the NHL when we’re winning. It starts tomorrow.”

With files from Murray Pam.