I looked at the difference between the finishing talents of 1st- and 4th-liners last week and reader jeffgm suggested that home and road data might show the impact of line-matching on goal-scoring. Here's the data:
| Home | Home | Road | Road | |
| Quality | Shot % | Quality | Shot % | |
| Top 1/4 | 7.42 | 8.10 | 7.00 | 7.83 |
| 2nd 1/4 | 7.29 | 7.54 | 6.95 | 7.30 |
| 3rd 1/4 | 7.37 | 6.96 | 6.92 | 6.81 |
| Bot 1/4 | 7.27 | 5.89 | 6.87 | 6.06 |
Shot quality shows a home-road differential but all lines maintain the same small difference in each situation. Finishing performance, on the other hand, shows what I think we expect: shooting percentage drops on the road because the home coach can choose who to match lines with. The interesting thing is the jump in shooting percentage for 4th liners – what's going on there? It's not clear to me how you construct a scenario where the 4th line gets easier matchups on the road than at home. Over 114000 shots, it's not likely to be a statistical anomaly.
