There are lots of things that factor into home ice advantage. You have your crowd cheering for you, you aren’t fatigued by travel, you get to go through your familar routine, sleep in your own bed.
All these are nice, but in the NHL, there’s a significant advantage that tilts the results in favor of the home team: line-matching.
For those of you who don’t know, the road team puts their players on the ice first before a face-off, giving the home team a chance to set the match-ups. Do you want to put your best scorers out against their fourth-line?