Resale market heating up for Edmonton Oilers playoff tickets

The in-house decibel meter shot past 100 throughout the game. More than 1,150 hats — 14 bags full — were collected after Zach Hyman scored his third goal of the game.

Just another raucous playoff night at Edmonton's Rogers Place, right? Not quite.

The Oilers announced a sellout crowd for their 7-4 win over Los Angeles on Monday that opened a first-round playoff series with the Kings.

Unoccupied seats, however, were noticeable throughout the arena. There was an entire row that was empty just behind the Oilers bench. In another lower bowl section, seats close to ice level remained empty during the duration of the game. There were a few empty pairs at each end of the rink.

As of 8 p.m. MT, just minutes before the national anthems played, the Ticketmaster site showed around 180 unsold seats on its Rogers Place map.

Oilers team officials said that the unsold seats were returned holds from the visiting Kings and the NHL — friends and family tickets that weren't used.

Some of the empty seats could also be attributed to fans who tried to resell their tickets, but couldn't.

The players were still bullish about the home support

"A lot of people have talked about the atmosphere," said forward Adam Henrique, who scored in his first playoff game as an Oiler.

"Personally, you can feel the buzz, running into people outside the rink, you can feel the connection from the fans to the team, to the players, and what it means to a lot of people.

"To get out there and experience that first-hand was pretty special."

While it took right up till opening faceoff for the Oilers to call Game 1 a sellout, they've got work to do when it comes to filling the building for Game 2 on Wednesday night and a potential Game 5 on May 1.

As of Tuesday