There are a few players in the league who are dominant no matter where they are playing. Jarome Iginla is a good example. He has 66 points in 68 games this season and of those, 33 have been recorded both at home and on the road. Another example is Rick Nash, who has 29 points at home and on the road, but not every player is wired this way. Many perform either better on the road or better at home and in this two part series, I'll look at both.

Nashville has the most lopsided final schedule of any team. In 15 games remaining, they play 12 at home. If you can get him, Shea Weber is worth grabbing. Outside of the injured Steve Sullivan, Weber is the only Predator to score more points at home (22) than on the road (19) and that comes with having played more nine more road games than home up to this point of the year. With 12 more games at Bridgestone Arena, you can expect Weber's production to rise.

In San Jose, the Sharks have nine home games remaining and only six road games. So if you're a contender and you managed to grab Joe Thornton or Patrick Marleau at your trade deadline, your future looks pretty bright. Thornton has 32 points at home and only 22 on the road while Marleau follows suit with 35 and 16 respectively.

Other players to keep an eye on include Detroit's Pavel Datsyuk who has 31H/21R points and 10H/6R games remaining, Buffalo's Drew Stafford who has 24H/16R points, with 9H/7R games remaining, Phoenix's Ray Whitney who has 32H/18R points and 8H/6R games remaining, Boston's Zdeno Chara who has 20H/12R points and 9H/7R games remaining, and Carolina?'s Jamie McBain who has 16H/9R points and 10H/6R games remaining.

On the flip side, there are guys who play well on the road, but have a lot of home games remaining. I'm not telling you to dump and change on these guys, but if you're hoping for a late season (fantasy playoff) push from them, you might want to lower your expectations. Logan Couture, for example, has only 13 points at home and 31 on the road. So with 9 home games and only 6 road games remaining, his production might not be ideal.

Ryan Kesler is an example of a player who performs well at home (34H/25R points), but has a road-heavy schedule (6H/8R). Tomas Plekanec is another with 33H/19R points but only plays 6 more home games, with 9 on the road. Claude Giroux (37H/24R) and Mike Richards (35H/20R) have only 7 home games compared to 9 road games.

Without getting into the numbers, other players who have road-heavy schedules but perform well at home include Stamkos, St. Louis, Purcell, Lecavalier (just about the whole TB team), Tanguay, Jokinen, Parenteau, Moulson, Comeau, Grabner, Nielsen, Bolland, Seabrook, Keith, and Brian Campbell, among others.

Some players fluctuate more than others, but simply looking at total points and total games remaining might not paint the whole picture for you and your playoff planning. Stay tuned for my next article Road Warriors, which focuses on players who perform well on the road and whether or not they have favorable schedules for the remainder of the season.

Check out my section at Dub's Take for articles on Mike Santorelli, Justin Schultz, Andreas Nodl, & Stefan Elliott, as well as in-depth game audits, and analysis on players leaguewide.

Comments (6)

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Pengwin7 said:

	Solid Piece I think most players grow up with a certain feeling in their stomach for when they play at home vs. road. I know when I was a kid there were two distinct feelings. So, I really enjoyed this article. Great value here Dub! Well done!
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March 10, 2011
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duballstar014 said:

	@Ross I'm not a big Radiohead fan (just never got into them), but I'll definitely check out the Pink Floyd stuff. Thanks for the heads up!
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March 10, 2011
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duballstar014 said:

	... We'll see how it pans out over the remainder of the season Cory, but personally I think this season's data is more applicable to the final 15-18 games of this season. Remember, you shouldn't be making a keeper league decision off of this data, only a one-year league since I'm focusing on the remaining games of this season only, not the future performance of every player.
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March 10, 2011
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Cory said:

... For most of these cases, I think this is paralysis by analysis. If a player has shown a difference between home and away stats throughout his career, then perhaps you can draw a conclusion. If a player has only shown that difference this year, then you are simply looking at statistical noise, and trying to predict future performance based on it. You will hurt your team by doing that, not help your team. Because the predictive power of statistical noise is non-existent.

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March 10, 2011
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Ross The Boss Palmer said:

Nice nickname Ever listen to the Easy Star All Stars? Your nickname reminds me of them. They do reggae versions of great rock albums, the two I know are Radiohead's OK Computer (album titled RadioDread) and Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon (album titled Dub Side of the Moon). Worth a listen whether you are a fan of rock or reggae or both Great article BTW. It's too bad I have Couture, Kesler, and Giroux, and traded away Stafford a month ago.

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March 10, 2011
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Hek said:

Very Nice Great stuff Dub. It's always nice to know which guys perform better when they're in front of their home crowds and when they're in hostile territory. Getting a balance of players from both situations would give a solid advantage to a play-off run for a savvy owner. Just another fine example of looking beyond the regular stat lines of who put up points on a given night. Looking forward to the second piece.

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