I believe the issue is very complex and intertwined. The team being very bad shines a spotlight on the owner; why is the team bad? Like any business, if the product is bad, you look at who is in charge and see what they are doing wrong. If the team was still competitive, I think most fans would have overlooked some of Melnyk's off ice problems. The dilemma is, however, that the team is very bad and the reasons are directly linked to decisions made by the owner due to his financial shortcomings. If he was struggling, yet continued to spend on the team, we might actually feel sorry for him and suggest he "is trying his best" even though he is not making money. At that point, one might suggest the fans could shoulder some of the blame if they continued to not attend games and sell out the arena.
Obviously the above example is not the real case here, Melnyk has cut the budget down to shreds, he has traded off any "expensive" players and disguised it all under some false notion of a re-build. The fans are not stupid, outsiders might blame us for "not showing up" but that would not really be telling the whole story.
The problem begins and ends with Melnyk, if he sells ( and I sound like a broken record), along with a few shrewd marketing moves by the new owner(s) and the fans will flock back.