The Stanley Cup Playoffs are bringing up a question that seems to come up every year during the playoffs – how valuable is home-ice advantage? Or is it an advantage at all?
Over the last little while, it hasn’t seemed like it. The Predators/Jets series may have been the best example of this where five out of seven games were won on the road. Road teams are actually over .500 this year with a 39-33 record and that has only been magnified in the last nine games.
Martin St. Louis, who has been sharing some interesting analysis on Twitter lately decided to chime in, offering up a reason why this might be the case. He thinks that the home-ice advantage might have coaches overthinking.
This is a common complaint with some hockey fans, especially when star players get less ice-time because of line matching. Obviously getting a good matchup is helpful, but not when it comes for the price of not playing your best players as much as possible.
Maybe the Jets and Capitals could keep this in mind when they play Game 4 at their respective arenas.
