If you’ve ever seen Joe Dirt then surely you remember when he finally finds his childhood home, only to discover his family moved out about 15 years ago. The Old Cajun Man, who is played by the great Blake Clark, notifies Joe that his family has moved on, but the most important thing he states is that “home is where you make it.”

 Home Is Where You Make It

For the Tampa Bay Lightning, home is where they make it. As in, make their home the toughest building to play in, in the entire NHL since the 2009-10 season, according to home-away win differential.

The Lightning have managed to build a 115-61-22 record at home in the past six years. That feat includes three seasons in which they won 25 at home. Taking into consideration the lockout year and this year, only four have included the full 82 game schedule, which is a pretty large accomplishment.

Though, their record on the road is pretty shabby – 80-95-24 to be exact on the shabbiness. They have managed to tally 114 more markers at home than on the road, and collected 68 more points in the process – which is more than Edmonton, Florida and Buffalo had in the 2013-14 season.

Attendance Factor

Tampa Bay’s average attendance could be a driving force to the win differential as well. Attendance has been steadily increasing since the 2009-10 campaign when they averaged just 15,497 fans per game through 41 home games, which ranked them 21-of-30 teams in the league.

Their year of the fans was the short-lived lockout season of 2012-13 in which they ranked eighth in the league with an average of 19,055 through 24 home contests, but the top seven teams averaged more fans per home game than seats available in the, then, Tampa Bay Times Forum. According to AmalieArena.com, “The innovative design of Amalie Arena provides for 19,204 seats for NHL games.”

Not a bad difference between actual and anticipated.