We may like to think that this is a Sabre problem, and to some extent, it is. But attendance across the league is down too, and I'm guessing you'll see similar numbers in other leagues over the last few years. The average attendance has dropped from last year for 21 out of the 31 teams. It's early, so those numbers can catch up. There's also the issue of what numbers actually get reported in each building, but either way, whatever they're reporting, it's down.
A lot of the numbers are fairly small, so for the hell of it, I'll look at those with a change of +/- 1000 fans per game. You have 8 teams who decreased by over 1000 fans per game vs. only 2 teams that increased by over 1000. I'm not sure if there are any new arenas or if there were any renovations that drastically changed the capacity of any arenas, but I doubt that would explain away all these drops.
And one completely unrelated note while looking at the attendance figures. Minnesota has played 10 home games and 20 road games so far. That must suck for them.