How does that work ? I thought the higher seeded team would maintain home ice advantage throughout the series ? Is this figurative or real ?
For clarity, the simplest definition of
home ice advantage in this context is just that
if one projects the home team to win every game, then the team with the most home games (remaining) would win the series.
It has nothing (directly) to do with other potential "advantages" to playing at home such as fan atmosphere, officiating tendencies towards home vs away teams, or the ability of the home team to have the last lineup change prior to a faceoff. Of course, all of those aspects
may indirectly have some impact to a game's outcome, which is why that term has been coined in the first place.
With the completion of actual games, "projections" get replaced by "actuals". Any road win by a team breaks the projection, so you need to create a new projection based upon the games remaining- which is why you are likely to hear that the series is now a "best of five" if the first two games were split, or hear a "best of three" if the next two games (i.e., the 3rd and 4th games) are also split.
Hopefully that helps you, and it certainly helped my OCD-driven need for precision.
All that said,
@Three On Zero is not wrong to say it's a narrative, lol.