Home-ice advantage is a real thing for a handful of NHL teams, especially when seeing how ugly their results are on the road.
As the 2024-25 regular season continues to unfold, there are some truly Jekyll-and-Hyde performances between teams that thrive at home and struggle on the road. Five clubs, in particular, are either pushing for a playoff spot or home-ice advantage for the first round and need much better showing away from home to achieve those goals.
Let’s look at those five teams, in alphabetical order.
Carolina Hurricanes
The Hurricanes entered the season as a favorite to be the top team in the Metropolitan Division, but they’re 12 points behind the Washington Capitals. The reason why they’re a distant second is that although they’re 26-7-1 at home, they’re 13-15-3 on the road. Five of their last six wins came in Carolina, while five of their last six losses came on the road.
Carolina ranks 23rd on the road in points percentage, and much of their issues come from a drop in offense. They have the second-most goals-for per game at home, with 3.74, and the 23rd-most away, at 2.61. Their special teams are also slightly worse on the road, and they allow more shots against than they do at home.
Ten of Carolina’s remaining 17 games will be away from home. If the Hurricanes can’t improve their road record, they better hope the New Jersey Devils don’t go on a hot streak and make up the six-point difference to take away Carolina’s home-ice advantage. But thanks to the Hurricanes’ success at home, they will likely be at Lenovo Center to start the post-season.
Columbus Blue Jackets
The underdog Blue Jackets have an impressive home record of 20-6-4, but away from home, they’re a brutal 11-19-4. Since Feb. 1, the Jackets have gone 5-6-1. Five of those losses came on the road, while four of those wins happened at home.
Columbus has the best offense in the NHL at home with 4.07 goals-for per game. But they’re 20th on the road at 2.68 goals per game.
Their power-play success rate at home is the second-best, at 29.4 percent, but it’s 12.4 percent on the road, which is second-worst.
Zach Werenski not only leads all NHL defensemen in points at home, but he ranks second among all players. That is remarkable when considering he has the 18th-most points overall.
The good news for Columbus is that 11 of its final 18 games will be at home. If they can at least squeeze one point out of games at home, even if they lose in overtime, they will not only solidify their spot in a wild-card position but challenge New Jersey for third spot in the Metro – and a probable first-round showdown with Carolina.
Los Angeles Kings
The Kings have been phenomenal at home, going 21-3-4 so far. But it’s an entirely different story for them on the road, where they’ve posted a 13-17-5 mark. The difference between their home and road records is striking, and it has real consequences for how the rest of L.A.’s season could play out.
Los Angeles also has a tougher time scoring on the road at home, but the defensive numbers really stand out. They’ve allowed only 2.11 goals against per game at Crypto.com Arena but have conceded 3.06 goals per game everywhere else.
The Kings have 13 of their remaining 19 games at home. While they probably won’t catch the Vegas Golden Knights for top spot in the Pacific Division, the Kings can challenge the Edmonton Oilers for second place – they’re only one point behind them with a game in hand. Considering that L.A. has finished third in the Pacific in each of the past three seasons – taking on the Oilers in the first round in each of those three years – switching things up by securing home-ice advantage could prove to be huge for the Kings.
The challenge is obvious, and the Kings have control of their future, so continuing to play well at home is crucial for them this season.
Tampa Bay Lightning
The Lightning are an imposing 23-8-2 at home, but on the road, they’re a thoroughly average group with a 14-15-2 record.
Since Feb. 4, they’ve been one of the hottest teams in the league with a 10-3-0 mark, and seven of those 10 wins came in Tampa Bay. Before that hot streak, they were 7-9-2, and they even fell out of a playoff spot briefly. They were 2-7-1 on the road during that span.
The Lightning are still battling to move up the ranks of the Atlantic Division. They’re currently in third spot largely because of their home record, where they have the third-most goals-for per game (3.67) and third-fewest goals against per game (2.27) with the fifth-best penalty-kill success rate (85.1 percent). Away from home, the Lightning only rank 19th in goals-against average (3.13) and penalty-kill rate (77.6 percent).
Ten of their final 18 games are on the road, including a visit to Dallas, Utah and Vegas. They’re only three points behind the Toronto Maple Leafs for second place in the Atlantic Division, but they’ll need to stay strong at home and tighten up on the road to have a proper chance of taking home-ice advantage in the first round.
Vegas Golden Knights
The Golden Knights lead the Pacific Division by five points now, which makes their road record almost confusing.
Vegas is 24-7-3 at home and 14-12-4 on the road. They’ve got 11 road games still to play, including an upcoming three-game road trip in the Eastern Conference. They also play Pacific Division rivals Calgary and Vancouver twice on the road in April.
Interestingly, the Golden Knights have the NHL’s best power-play success percentage on the road, at 31.4 percent, while it’s 23.8 percent at home. But their penalty kill is a league-worst 71.4 percent on the road,
Vegas likely won’t fall lower than second place in the Pacific, so its home record is a good harbinger of what’s to come in the post-season. But obviously, they’ll have to play road games no matter where they finish in the Pacific, so any loss at home in the playoffs could be costlier than expected if they don’t improve slightly elsewhere.
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