Pittsburgh Penguins: Home Advantage Gives Us the Advantage

With the Pittsburgh Penguins game four 4-1 loss on Monday, the Nashville Predators have tied the Stanley Cup Final at 2 apiece.

The story so far has been the shift in dominance from games one and two to games three and four. The Pittsburgh Penguins seemed to breeze through the first two games quite easily, which both took place in Pittsburgh. The Predators did too in games three and four, which were in Nashville.

Pittsburgh Penguins

While it may not be the biggest factor, home ice advantage is likely playing a big part in the outcome of these games. We may not always realize it, but when it comes to these Finals, the fans seem to be making quite an impact. So with game five coming up, maybe the Penguins should look to taking advantage of being in front of their home crowd.

Enemy Territory

The Nashville Predators have come out and proved that they have one of the most supportive and loudest fanbases in the entire NHL.

In my opinion, although their chants can become a bit excessive and arrogant, there is nothing wrong with them. Their fans are doing whatever they can to get inside our heads. Although some of it can be seen as rude, it seems to somewhat be working and you can’t blame them for doing that.

We have to block this out in game six if we want to take home the Cup as soon as possible. Hockey is just as much of a mental game as it is physical.

Home Advantage

How can we counter this? We have to be twice as loud and effective. Pittsburgh has a great fanbase. We have a lot of fans, and we have home advantage in this series. We have to take full advantage of this.

Like I said before, hockey is a real mental game. You may not think home advantage and fan support is that important of a factor, but this series has shown that it could play a bigger role than we all thought.