Through the first two days of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs, the home team has won every game. According to Sportsnet Stats, this is postseason history that the home team has gone unbeaten in the first six Game 1s played in the opening round of the NHL Playoffs.
The Edmonton Oilers certainly hope that trend continues when they start their first round best-of-seven series against the Los Angeles Kings at Rogers Place tonight (April 22), because Edmonton is also facing another trend that is much less in its favour: the Oilers have the worst win percentage in Game 1 among all NHL franchises over the last three decades.
In their last 22 postseason series, the Oilers are 4-18 in Game 1, and have lost their last seven series openers. They’ve also dropped an NHL-record six straight series openers at home and haven’t won a Game 1 in front of their fans since 1990, which is also the last time Edmonton captured the Stanley Cup.
Since the Oilers ended their 10-year playoff drought in 2017, they are 1-8 in Game 1, including losses to Los Angeles in the first round each of the last two postseasons. The only current Edmonton players that have experienced a Game 1 win as a member of the Oilers are Leon Draisaitl, Connor McDavid, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Darnell Nurse.
Slumps like this that span decades defy explanation, because what might have caused Edmonton to lose a series opener in 1992 has nothing to do with why today’s Oilers always seem to find themselves trailing 1-0. Logic would suggest that their dreadful luck in Game 1 has to turn around eventually. But will that be tonight?
Oilers Look to Heat Back Up
If momentum is a thing, the Oilers certainly aren’t coming in hot to Game 1. While a lot has been made of Edmonton owning the NHL’s best record since American Thanksgiving, the Oilers also ranked just 22nd for point percentage in the league since March 23, going 7-6-2 over that span.
Edmonton won only one of its final five games and was outscored 11-3 over the last seven periods. Excluding a 9-2 walloping of the last-place San Jose Sharks on April 15, the Oilers averaged just 1.5 goals per game over the last week of the regular season.
The Oilers were also without captain McDavid for four of their six games, as he missed three games due to injury and was a healthy scratch in Edmonton’s season finale 5-1 loss to the Colorado Avalanche on Thursday (April 18). Leading goal scorer Zach Hyman scored just twice in April after racking up 52 goals in his first 71 games of the season.
Oilers Have Dominated at Home
On a more promising note, Edmonton has been a juggernaut at Rogers Place under the stewardship of head coach Kris Knoblauch. Since he replaced Jay Woodcroft behind the bench on Nov. 12, the Oilers are 27-5-3 when playing on home ice. Edmonton finished the season with a home record of 28-9-4, tied for the second-best home win percentage in the NHL.
Related: Oilers Can’t Take Kings Too Lightly in First Round Series
The Oilers faced Los Angeles twice at Rogers Place this season, thrilling their fans with wins of 4-2 on Feb. 26 and 4-1 on March 28. McDavid recorded two and three points, respectively, in those games.
Oilers Are Used to Coming Back in Series
So what if the Oilers lose Game 1 yet again tonight? There will likely be some degree of panic in Oil Country, but it won’t be the end of the world. In fact, in some backward way, it might be a good sign.
In Edmonton’s post-dynasty era (after 1992), the Oilers have won nine playoff series. In seven of those nine series, they lost Game 1. Meanwhile, of the four times that they have won Game 1 during the post-dynasty era, only twice have they managed to go on to be victorious in the series.
So maybe it’s actually better for Edmonton to drop Game 1. The current team certainly seems quite comfortable in that scenario, rallying from down 1-0 to win a series three times over the last two springs. That includes victories of 4-3 and 4-2 over the very same Los Angeles team that the Oilers will face off against tonight.
In the end, all these trends and streaks, facts and stats are nothing more than numbers and words. Leave it to Draisaitl, who perhaps put it best, when on Sunday (April 21) he said: “Every series writes its own story.” The hockey world won’t have to wait much longer now to find out.