In the National Hockey League postseason, home ice actually doesn’t really matter too much.
I know, I know, it’s all any Blues fan is talking about right now — the Blues, it seems, have just got to get home ice against Minnesota. When it comes to the playoffs, home ice is discussed more than Vanilla and Smirnoff in their heydays. But history and data show that home ice doesn’t sway many series.
Of course, a team and its fans want home ice because of what it signifies. In addition to any perceived psychological advantage over an underdog team, you get to match any line change after a whistle, you get the first two games at home and, yes, if the series goes seven, you get to host the big one. And there’s the whole sleep-in-your-own-bed thing.
But, look. In last year’s NHL playoffs, there were 15 series — and the team with home-ice advantage only won five of the series.
And the team without home-ice advantage actually won all four of the second-round series.
The 2020 postseason was played in the bubbles. So, let's look at 2019, and sure enough, the team with home ice only won seven of the 15 series. Perhaps you recall that postseason. The Blues fared well. And they only had home-ice advantage in one of their four series.
Yes, you can say the advantage was crucial in that particular series, because the Blues won Game 7 of the second round at home in double overtime. But ask the Lightning about the importance of home ice. In that 2019 season, Tampa Bay had the best record. But the Lightning lost its first two playoff games at home … and then lost the next two in Columbus. The President’s Trophy winners were swept in the first round.
That same Tampa Bay franchise went on to win the Stanley Cup in the 2020 bubbled postseason.
And then in 2021, unlike 2019, the Lightning didn’t have home ice in the first round. But — the Lightning won the first round.
And, sure enough, Tampa didn’t have home ice in the second round, either, but won that series, too.
With home ice, the Lightning won the next two series to repeat as champs.
“Over many years during the regular season, home teams in the NHL win about 55% of the matches,” statistics professor Tim Swartz, who wrote a paper on the topic at Canada’s Simon Fraser University, said by email. “This is a good measure of the advantage since the average is taken over all games, and therefore, the strength of the teams even out. … For context, calculated similarly, the home advantage in the NBA is 61% and in the NFL is 58%.”
Sure enough, in the 2021 and 2019 postseasons, the home team went 91-80 — so that’s 53.2%.
So, if the Blues lose out on home ice, it doesn’t suggest the Blues will lose the series.
Though if you ask the Wild, its players believe home ice could have a huge impact on this series. While St. Louis has an amazing record in recent years against Minnesota, the Wild players point to the fact that this season, the only matchup in Minnesota was the anomaly of the Winter Classic.
“Since I’ve been here, we lost twice against them in overtime in three on three,” Minnesota’s Nic Deslauriers told the St. Paul Pioneer-Press. “In the playoffs, there’s no three on three, so it’s a big difference. We’re confident.”
And the Wild is 12-0-1 in its past baker’s dozen at home, though I’ll point out that the Wild had to go to overtime to win five of them.
“Our record speaks (for) itself here,” Wild goalie Cam Talbot told the Pioneer-Press. “We’re a different team when we’re in front of our fans. We can feed off of that in a series like that. That means a lot for our group moving forward, and we definitely want to start with Game 1 here.”
In case you didn’t know, the Blues and the Wild both have 109 points. But the Blues only have two games left, while the Wild has three.
The Blues play Tuesday at Colorado — one of the two first-place teams in the Western Conference — and then home Friday against Vegas.
Minnesota has the often-mentioned “game in hand.” It hosts rebuilding Arizona on Tuesday and then, interestingly, Calgary on Thursday (the other first-place team) and Colorado on Friday.
As for the Blues and Wild, you can point to the fact that both teams play well at home, so hosting Game 7 could be the difference-maker. And, yes, in the 2021 and 2019 postseason, the home team went 6-3 in Game 7s.
But two things come to mind. First of all, that sure didn’t matter in the biggest Game 7 of all in 2019. And second, in those nine seven-game series, the home team went 34-29 (54%). So that’s 29 times the team with home ice lost a playoff game. That’s a lot of losses.
So, this week will be fun and intense, but don’t let the home-ice anxiety get to you. If the Blues don’t get home-ice advantage, they still have plenty of advantages in this series.
