“Is the home team still on fire, do they still win all their games?”
That line from Gordon Lightfoot’s ‘Did She Mention My Name’, would be a definitive negative in these Stanley Cup playoffs. Along with the late singer’s favourite team, the Maple Leafs, home sides continue to fumble their advantage.
After the Leafs lost Game 1 of both the Tampa and Florida series, and Seattle won in Dallas on Tuesday, road teams hold sway, 33-19.
Toronto’s record is 1-3 at Scotiabank Arena, despite all the hoopla in the building, in Maple Leaf Square and in the streets.
“It is (frustrating),” coach Sheldon Keefe said Wednesday. “Home should be a tough place to play. We should be better, have more life, more energy, all these kinds of things. It’s certainly a topic around here in terms of handling that better, no matter where we are playing.
“I thought we got off to a fine start (Tuesday), got out of our end well, earned the power plays, had a chance to take a hold of the game and didn’t.
“At home you should never fade, We have to fix that and no better time than (Game 2).”
Before his team lost three overtimes at home and the series to the Leafs, Lightning coach Jon Cooper said the imbalance could be a simple case of the top 16 surviving teams all proving themselves adept at road survival through the schedule and carrying it into spring.
Other coaches figure that cookie-cutter arenas, similar styles of fast play and near-identical game operation stunts have slowly eliminated the foreign feel of a road game.
“I can’t figure it out,” said Panthers’ coach Paul Maurice, whose club won three in Boston in its upset. “Sometimes you play a more simple game in the road. Maybe as teams get more and more skilled, that’s the place they go (to show it).”
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