All season long, teams fight for home-ice advantage but is it really an advantage. The answer seems to be less definitive in the playoffs than in the regular season.
During the regular season, the road team wins 44% of the time coming out victorious in 203 of 462 games.
Amazingly, that number is identical through the first 26 games of the CHL playoffs. Road teams have won 11 of 25 games (44%).
The Missouri Mavericks are the team that has really skewed that number going a perfect 4-0 so far in this season’s playoffs. The Mavs currently lead their best-of-7 conference finals series with the Fort Wayne Komets, two games to none.
Fort Wayne will look to turn that series around with three straight road games in Missouri beginning on Wednesday night.
The Komets are 2-1 on the road in the playoffs winning their Opening Round series four games to two with the clincher coming on the road.
As far as home teams go, the biggest advantage may belong to the Texas Brahmas who wetn 22-7-4 during the regular season and are 2-1 so far in the playoffs winning the deciding Game 6 in their series with Allen in the friendly confines of the NYTEX Sports Centre.
Percentage of Games Won by Road Teams (past five playoff seasons)
2012- 45%
2011- 45%
2010- 50%
2009- 41%
2008- 37%
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