Teams opening the Stanley Cup playoffs on the road face fewer distractions and less pressure.
Looking back at New Jersey's end-of-season win over the New York Rangers, the one that came in a shootout and gave the Devils home ice-advantage in the series, I couldn't help but wonder if Rangers general manager Glen Sather wasn't secretly smiling all the way home.
Sather is a cagey veteran of NHL wars and surely knew that when it came to home ice it's great to have it if you're playing, say, Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final. Opening the first round at home, however, is another matter.
Now, surely you didn't miss the fact that of the four series openers played Wednesday evening, three of them were won by teams away from the so-called friendly confines of home ice.
The fifth-seeded Rangers handled the fourth-seeded Devils with relative ease, winning 4-1 in New Jersey. The sixth-seeded Colorado Avalanche beat the third-seeded Wild in Minnesota though they did have to go to overtime to get the 3-2 decision.
To the surprise of no one, particularly no one who read the stories about seventh seeds whomping on second seeds that appeared in the innovative online playoff magazine elsewhere on this site, the No.7 Calgary Flames scored a big win in beating the No. 2 San Jose Sharks in San Jose, 3-2.
Only the No. 2 seeded Pittsburgh Penguins prevailed on home ice, beating the injury-infested and seemingly spiritually-damaged Ottawa Senators, 4-0 in a game that wasn't as close as the final score.
What's going on? Well, nothing new really, but for insight we turn to two veteran coaches who are sitting out the postseason this time around, but have been in this situation before.
According to Lindy Ruff, head coach of the Buffalo Sabres, much of it stems from being able to claim the underdog role, a part of taking some pressure off your team and putting it on the heads and shoulders of the home club.
Ruff said that he would often try to take the pressure off his team by getting them to concentrate on a single goal, winning one of two (preferably both) on the road and getting his team to concentrate only on the final result, not how it gets done which is something the home team often things about.
"You try and get your team to embrace the idea that it's fun to be here and to really just embrace the idea that you are here and you aren't always going to get these kinds of chances. I know from experience that when you get in you're going to get pummeled from all angles and that if you're the favourite in the series, the pressure is even greater."
Ruff also knows that when he opens at home, he reverses all of that, but that it's certainly easier to get and keep your team's attention for the task at hand when the opener is away from family, friends and all the distractions that come with the second season.
Ruff's counterpart, Ken Hitchcock, has a similar view. Like Ruff, the coach of the Columbus Blue Jackets is out of this postseason, but he won a Cup with Dallas in 1999 (vs. Ruff's Sabres) and he's had the experience of being home and away with the Stars and the Philadelphia Flyers.
"For me the biggest challenge, the thing I've learned over time, is to not put pressure on your team," he said during a conference call with Ruff just prior to the start of the playoffs. "There's so much pressure on the players individually, your team collectively, that I think you're constantly trying to take the pressure off your team because they feel the momentum from the other side, they feel the stress of the media, the stress of the responsibility from their own ownership or even just from themselves. And I think one of the areas that you really have to be aware of and be concerned about is that you're not adding more pressure to an already high-pressure situation. "
Fixating on the Calgary-San Jose series, Hitchcock warned that San Jose would clearly have to deal with extra pressure.
"I would have bet going in that the way San Jose was playing, they're winning all the close games, I guess I'm curious now to see …they've lost a couple games in a row, and I know you're (supposed to be) able to write that off, but with the series being back-to-back games to open up against Calgary, it's going to be interesting because momentum is going to be everything.
"I don't know if they (the Sharks) have lost any momentum going in. You wouldn't think so. But momentum is a huge factor leading into the playoffs, no matter what anybody says.
"And then having back-to-back games, I think it's a real advantage for the visiting team. I'm curious to see that series now, mostly on San Jose's part."
Both men also mentioned that there's a particular price to pay in the first round with favourites feeling the pressure and challengers feeling they have everything to gain and nothing to lose. With conditions like that, the first round produces not only upsets, but some of the most trying and intense games in the postseason.
"I think the price to win and the price you have to pay to win is at its absolute highest in the first round," Hitchcock said. "I think that’s especially true for your top players, they get tested every night, every shift, and that's the way it's going to be. And then it just becomes survival of the fittest as you move on. But everybody is energized in the first round and everybody is going after it, and your best players are going to have to be your best players, and they're going to have to live with being a target.
"I think a lot of players, especially good players, make or break their reputations in the first round."
"As Ken mentioned, getting through the first series is usually a war," Ruff added. "It's a battle. The first series will usually go deep. I've always found it's been the toughest and usually the most physical, and then you see how you come out of that, and usually you're not as physically able as you were starting the playoffs.
I just find that it's extremely tough even to get through that first one."
Doing it at home, in front of a demanding crowd who expects to be entertained as well as seeing a win, well, little wonder it's just a little bit easier opening on the road.
Somehow you just know that Sather and Mike Keenan and Joel Quennville and a whole bunch of other smart guys knew it as well.
