Whether it's on a court, a field or the ice, playing at home should give a team an advantage.

With a brand new, state of the art arena and near futuristic facilities on their side, the Lehigh Valley Phantoms figured to have a distinct home ice advantage this season, but that hasn't been the case.The team opened up with two straight wins at home, but then dropped their next two home games. The longest home win streak this season has been four games, with one other streak of three straight home wins.Right now, things have turned drastically and the Phantoms have dropped seven straight on their home ice and are just 12-10-3-1 at the PPL Center. To make matters worse, the team is in a stretch of four straight home games and six of seven at home, but have dropped the first three games in that stretch."Today was a must-win game, so that just makes the next game that much more important," said defenseman Oliver Lauridsen after Friday night's 5-1 loss to Providence. "We just need to start stringing wins together."We've got a couple more here at home, where we really need to play like a home team and give our fans something to cheer for, and put some playoff hopes into this new building and for the fans that come out every night."When looking for reasons why the Phantoms are struggling at home, nobody has any sure-fire answers. What they do know is that the problem doesn't lie in how tough their opponents are playing them, but lies within the Phantoms themselves.Both Lauridsen and coach Terry Murray offered basically the same explanations when asked whether other teams are doing anything specific that's giving them problems."It's not something they're doing, it's something that we're doing and that's sad. It's a shame for our fans and for ourselves, because these are important games that we're playing at home right now," said Lauridsen."They didn't do anything to stop us, it's all things that we're doing to ourselves," stressed Murray in his post-game meeting with the press after the loss to Providence.Murray is starting to sound like a coach that is well past the point of being frustrated with his team. He's held team meetings, encouraged the players to hold meetings amongst themselves, he's spoken one-on-one with players and made a number of line changes, all in an effort to turn things around.Nothing has worked. Murray is well aware of the opportunity that his team is missing by not winning during this stretch of home games and believes the players have to pull the team out of their struggles at home."We know that [they're missing an opportunity]. We're talking about it and we're aware of the opportunity that's being missed. We have to clean up a lot of stuff with the mistakes that we're making, the turnovers that we're making; everything's going to have to be better," said Murray."I didn't even address the team after the game. We talked after the first and second periods. It's time where the players have to grab a hold of this thing and think about what they have to do also."PHANTOMS FACTS ... Jason Akeson had his streak of 10 straight games with either an assist or a goal snapped in the 5-1 loss to Providence. The streak is tied for the longest in the AHL this season. He quickly started another streak with a goal and two assists in a 5-4 home loss to Hartford on Saturday ... Rob Zepp proved he was healthy and was recalled by the Flyers last Monday. Anthony Stolarz returned to Lehigh Valley after spending a week with the Flyers, but not getting into a game ... The four-game homestand ends Saturday against Binghamton. The team then travels to Hershey for a game on Sunday before playing two more home games in a row on March 6 (vs. Bridgeport) and March 7 (vs. Portland). After that, there's a five-game road trip before the Phantoms are home for nine of their last 14 games of the season ... The Phantoms (24-22-6-1) are currently 11th in the Eastern Conference, seven points behind Providence for the final playoff spot.