Tomes have been written about the problems with home scorer bias and home scorer errors, especially as pertains to the NHL's RTSS statistics. Edmonton's official scorers are notorious for over-counting (making up?) giveaways:
The league leaders in giveaways are none other than your Edmonton Oilers, who have been charged with a scandalous 972 such turnovers, nearly triple the 359 charged to the Blue Jackets. Not surprisingly, most of this discrepancy can be found on home ice, where trigger-happy statisticians have charged the Oil with 737 giveaways, compared to just 235 on the road.
A look at the early season RTSS data shows Edmonton's official scorers aren't allow in over-counting RTSS numbers, the boys in the box at the Verizon Center and American Airlines Center are trigger-happy on the "record hit" button.
Below is a breakdown of every NHL team by home hits per game and road hits per game. We're early in the season, so a game against a stingy scorer could impact the numbers. There's likely a lot of noise in the middle of these numbers, but the scorers at the top have counting issues.
| Team | Home Hits/Game | Road Hits/Game | Δ |
| Washington Capitals | 29.4 | 15.0 | 14.4 |
| Dallas Stars | 35.8 | 23.6 | 12.3 |
| Phoenix Coyotes | 26.4 | 19.2 | 7.2 |
| Vancouver Canucks | 26.0 | 18.8 | 7.2 |
| Chicago Blackhawks | 21.4 | 14.3 | 7.1 |
| Los Angeles Kings | 27.1 | 21.6 | 5.5 |
| Long Island Islanders | 22.1 | 17.0 | 5.1 |
| Detroit Red Wings | 23.6 | 19.2 | 4.4 |
| Montreal Canadiens | 21.9 | 17.7 | 4.2 |
| Florida Panthers | 20.8 | 17.2 | 3.7 |
| Toronto Maple Leafs | 23.1 | 19.5 | 3.6 |
| San Jose Sharks | 18.8 | 15.4 | 3.4 |
| Carolina Hurricanes | 23.1 | 20.0 | 3.1 |
| Ottawa Senators | 24.3 | 21.8 | 2.4 |
| Tampa Lightning | 22.2 | 20.1 | 2.1 |
| Philadelphia Flyers | 21.8 | 19.9 | 1.9 |
| Columbus Blue Jackets | 26.2 | 24.8 | 1.4 |
| Nashville Predators | 19.0 | 17.7 | 1.3 |
| Buffalo Sabres | 17.9 | 17.7 | 0.2 |
| Calgary Flames | 17.5 | 18.7 | -1.2 |
| Minnesota Wild | 21.7 | 23.8 | -2.1 |
| Boston Bruins | 21.3 | 23.6 | -2.2 |
| St. Louis Blues | 20.2 | 22.9 | -2.7 |
| Pittsburgh Penguins | 20.5 | 23.5 | -2.9 |
| Winnipeg Jets | 20.8 | 23.7 | -3.0 |
| Colorado Avalanche | 19.2 | 22.5 | -3.2 |
| New York Rangers | 23.8 | 27.3 | -3.6 |
| Edmonton Oilers | 15.3 | 20.0 | -4.7 |
| Anaheim Ducks | 19.9 | 25.4 | -5.4 |
| New Jersey Devils | 15.3 | 24.6 | -9.3 |
The Capitals average twice as many hits at home as they do on the road. Either they forget how to play hockey on the road, or their official scorer naps with his face on the "hit" key. The Stars are a physical team, as the Oilers recently found out, but their official scorer might want to take a second look at his definition of a hit.