When people say that the regular season doesn't matter once the NHL playoffs begin, they are wrong. Regular-season results matter because they determine which teams have the home-ice advantage in the playoffs.
There are several advantages that teams with home ice hold over their opponents. One of them is the luxury of having the last change, which allows the head coach of the home team to see which players his opposite number has decided to put on the ice and then match up accordingly.
This gives the home team the ability to match its shutdown defensive pairing against the other team's top goal scorer(s), which can have a huge factor in the outcome of a game.
For example, whenever the Boston Bruins play the Toronto Maple Leafs, B's head coach Claude Julien puts his No. 1 defense pairing of Zdeno Chara and Dennis Seidenberg on the ice every time star winger Phil Kessel hops over the Leafs boards.
Chara and Seidenberg have done a great job shutting down Kessel, holding him to one even-strength goal in 24 career games versus Boston (including playoffs). In Boston's Game 1 victory last Wednesday, Chara was on the ice f ...
Read Full Article at Bleacher Report - NHL
Article written by Nicholas Goss
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