Lightning look to reverse road team success in Game 5

The Eastern Conference Final between the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Washington Capitals is down to a best-of-three series.
Whichever team can win two games will advance to the Stanley Cup Final.
The Lightning would seem to have the advantage in that regard. Two out of the three games - tonight's Game 5 and a potential Game 7 - will be played on home ice at AMALIE Arena.

Yet home teams have found zero success so far during this unpredictable series.
Washington steamrolled the Lightning in the first two games in Tampa, outscoring the Bolts by a 10-4 margin and looking like a team that might sweep its way into the Cup Final.

The Lightning responded with two critical wins on the road in D.C., putting together their best effort of the series so far in a 4-2 win in Game 3 and riding the hot play of goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy to outlast the Caps in Game 4 despite getting outshot 38-20.
The home team is still searching for its first win in the series.
So are the Lightning at a disadvantage having to play two out of the next three at home?
"You know what, you're going to have to move past that eventually," said Lightning captain Steven Stamkos, who has scored a power-play goal in four-straight games and can break the Tampa Bay franchise record for consecutive playoff games scoring a goal with another marker tonight. "You work so hard throughout the season to have playoff series come down to a 2-of-3 and two of them are at home. You have to take advantage of finding a way to win, and hopefully we can break that mold tonight."
Maybe the Lightning should try to approach Game 5 like it's a road game. After all, the Bolts have won five in a row and are 5-1 on the road in these playoffs, the only loss coming in the First Round at New Jersey after already winning the first two games of the series at home. Tampa Bay is the second-best road playoff team in the NHL this postseason, its .800 road win percentage eclipsed only by Washington's .875.
The Bolts, in fact, are one of the best road playoff teams in the NHL over the last couple playoffs, going 18-9 since the start of the 2015 postseason.
Lightning forward Tyler Johnson, however, said the location of the ice doesn't matter, that it's more about what the Bolts do once they're on it.
"I don't think we really look at it as home and road," said Johnson, who has recorded an assist in two-straight games and three of the four ECF contests. "I think our first two games we weren't in our structure. We weren't doing what we wanted to do. We didn't have the desperation. I thought Game 3 was better. Game 4 had its ups and downs, but I think when we come into this game, we've just got to try to approach it to know that the little things that are working for us we've just got to continue doing that for a full 60 minutes."

There are advantages to playing away from home. Teams tend to play a simpler game on the road, that straightforward approach lending itself to more success in the playoffs. There's also the camaraderie and bonding that goes along with the entire team getting together on the road to eat, train, watch video, watch the other playoff series and just hang out. At home, there can be more distractions, which increase with each playoff round.
Still home ice is home ice and there's a reason teams fight during the 82-game regular season to obtain it.
The Bolts have it and will try to take advantage of it, for the first time in the series, tonight.
"Everyone wants to win, every time you go on the ice," Lightning forward Chris Kunitz said. "You should probably win when you're at home because you get the line matchups, you get things like that, but for whatever reason this series it hasn't gone like that. Maybe you feel a little more comfortable on the road. But we have to change that tonight if we're going to try to get ahead in this series. This is a good team. We don't want to give them any opportunities. Hopefully we have our best game in the series and the only way we can do that is to go out there, prove that and be a better team by playing our systems."