Edmonton Oilers officially lose major advantage for coming playoffs

It's an unfortunate loss for the Oilers who have an incredible home ice advantage in the playoffs with the backing of Oil Country, especially in a season where they expected to lock up home and compete for first place.

According to reporter Daniel Nugent-Bowman with the Athletic, the Oilers will begin on the road in the playoffs for the first time in the McDavid and Draisaitl era.

The Oilers are by far the most likely to match up with the Los Angeles Kings in the first round, but it's still possible that the Kings may actually overtake the Knights, and the Oilers could play Vegas in round one.

Either the Knights or the Kings in round one would be a very challenging matchup, but the Oilers motivated and primed for a long playoff run back to the Cup Final, to get a better result.

The fact that the Oilers will now be beginning the playoffs on the road is a total failure from the team after they were explicit with their goals of winning the division. The expectations of this team were much higher than third place.

All throughout the season the Oilers have struggled to click for an extended period of time. They've had dominant stretches of hockey, but not the type of win streak or sustained success that would secure the division.

When Connor McDavid said last playoffs that Oilers needed to drag the Panthers back to Alberta, it was a comment that carried the intensity of home ice advantage in Rogers Place. For the Oilers to not have a season well enough to begin the playoffs at home is a failure, and will be a significant disadvantage in a 7 game series.