I wouldn't listen too much to Melnyk... he starts whining the same tune about this time every year.
A though I do agree with your points above...
As much as I do wish he'd be a quiet owner, I do believe him a bit. I do believe he has financial issues and is using the time as a profit generator unfortunately as most owners know, the ones that are profitable are either legacy teams (leafs, yankees cowboys etc) or their has been significant monetary investment. Neither have happened in Ottawa. It looks to be changing a bit, but majority of the fans in the area are leaf or habs fans. The rest are Bruins. Only Sens fans are the odd flip overs and the younger generation.
I use to live in Pembroke (an our and a half north west of Ottawa) and all my friends were habs, leafs or bruins fans as kids typically cheer for the same team as their father. With my dad living in Edmonton (parents divorced) I basically was neutral and picked the sens because I had no cable and they were the only thing on in those great 14 win seasons. My point is, you're not converting those who have already picked a team or it will be a very low conversion. You literally have to wait for your fans to be born and hope the product and marketing makes them choose the sens.
Your fans are roughly 20-30 years from being able to buy tickets as well when the team was launched. Add in the first few season were crap, a few dud first round picks, getting owned by the leafs in every playoff series, lack of marketing, and now a ton of instability( melnyk and only making the playoffs every other year)
IMO they need a strong minimum 5 year game plan and its going to be costly. Quit screwing around with Karlsson and pay the main as he's exciting and a great player to build a team around. Spend to the cap as right now they are solely relying on the prospects (which are doing a great job on) but they need more. I like the core group of guys right now but they need more. losing Methot was a lot bigger than people realize on the back end. Oduya is ok but picked up on the cheap and is declining and in no way replaces Methot. Get an exiting product out there that makes the playoffs more often than not and then start ramping up the marking. Nothing is more exiting than playoff hockey and thats easy to build on.
This season is unfortunately going to get worse if nothing is done. Whats worse than missing the playoffs? trying to sell tickets in the second half knowing your team has little to no chance. that will also bleed into next years ticket sales.