Immediately below is a general discussion of home/road splits in daily fantasy hockey. If you’re just looking for plays for today’s three-game slate, skip down to the bottom of the post.

Nothing frustrates me more than identifying a matchup in which an offense has a good chance of scoring a bunch of goals, the offense delivering and scoring a bunch of goals, and all the goals being scored by fourth liners and random defensmen. I’ve often wondered if there is a way to figure out when a team’s lesser players might be more likely to score goals. I developed a theory that maybe ‘bottom six’ forwards might be more likely to score on the road when the home team can matchup better with the road team’s biggest offensive threats. Because the home team gets to do their line changes after they see who the road teams bring out, I thought that maybe road games would be the time to use some bottom six forwards. I wasn’t thinking you should avoid top six forwards on the road, just that when trying to build diverse GPP lineups, it would be a good idea to mix in bottom six forwards of team’s with good matchups on the road.

To test this out I took the 12 forwards from each team who average the most ice time per game. I considered the six forwards from each team with the most TOI/game to be the top six forwards for that team and the other six forwards the bottom six. I realize that there may be some third liners who average more ice time than guys technically in their team’s top six. But I expect that a majority of the time teams are giving their six best forwards the most ice team. I also realize that lines change constantly. But classifying top six and bottom six in this manner is by far the most convenient and doesn’t seem likely to skew the experiment I’m trying to conduct.

Once I’d split all the forwards into top six and bottom six, I looked at the average “goals per 60″ and points per 60” at home and on the road for the 180 top six forwards and 180 bottom six forwards. The results were interesting and did not exactly confirm my hypothesis. Here are how bottom six forwards fair at home and on the road.

It probably shouldn’t surprise me that bottom six forwards score fewer goals on the road given that any subset of players you choose to look at probably scores fewer goals on the road. Some of that is because home team’s have last change, and some of it is probably attributable to the more immeasurable effects of home field (or ice) advantage like fatigue from travel, officiating (which is probably measurable), unfamiliarity with surroundings and hostile crowds. Which is why I was correct in my assumption that top six forwards would score less on the road.

Yeah, I was right in assuming top six forwards would score less on the road, but my reasoning as to why was incorrect. Goal scoring for top six forwards declines 6.5 percent on the road and point scoring declines 8.7 percent. But the decreases are more significant for bottom six players. Goal scoring for bottom six players declines 14 percent on the road and point scoring declines 12 percent. That means I was incorrect in my theory that top six forwards would be at a bigger disadvantage on the road because of the home team’s ability to use last change to better matchup with them.

As it turns out, the exact opposite of my original hypothesis is true, for practical DFS purposes anyway. It’s better to use bottom six forwards when they are playing at home. So when you identify a a cheap third liner in a good matchup, consider whether he’s at home or on the road. That’s not to say you can’t use him if it’s a road game, but you can feel better about putting him in a lineup if he’s playing at home. And if you think a particular team has a great matchup and want to stack that team heavily, consider names other than the obvious first and second liners if the team is playing at home. Again, third liners are going to have big games on the road. But they’re more likely to have them at home.

DraftKings Plays for January 28

There are only three games tonight, so I’m not going to bother with my usual research in which I calculate every player’s value because I’m probably not going to play this slate. But I can tell you which team’s I’d target and avoid if you’re playing tonight.

The two teams I would avoid completely are Pittsburgh and Toronto. They’ve both been below average offensive teams in the last 20 or so games while their opponents have been above average defensively in that same time frame. I’m also not big on New Jersey. They have the best matchup of the day against the Maple Leafs, but they’ve also been one of the five worst offensive teams over the last 20 games. I suppose a Devils-stack makes for an interesting contrarion play in a GPP, but if you’re just making a lineup or two, don’t bother with Devils.

That leaves us with Chicago, Washington and Los Angeles. Washington and LA have been better offensive teams recently, but they are facing above average defensive teams. While Washington and Chicago have been better offensively, Chicago has still been well above average offensively and they’re playing the Kings who have been one of the five best matchups for opposing skaters recently. I’m always looking for that combination of good offense against bad defense. If you’re just making one lineup, focus on Blackhawks. If you’re making several, include some Kings and Caps.