luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · October 16, 2025

No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.

Canucks at Stars, Oct 16, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Canucks beat the Stars 5–3, but the replays lean toward the Stars: they take 7 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 29 points of win probability to the Canucks.

The biggest swing (P2, 9:54 left): Max Sasson scored on a snap shot from 22 feet, worth 18 points of win probability to the Canucks.

Final

Vancouver Canucks 5
Dallas Stars 3

October 16, 2025 · American Airlines Center

Luck index +65 Canucks very lucky · −65 Stars

Each team’s own shots from this game, resampled into new games 4,000 times, each a goal at its chance, with the power plays the penalties gave and the pulled goalie at the end: with the way both teams actually played, how often does this performance win? How the replay works

Ten replays. Canucks win 3, Stars win 7.

  1. 1 VAN 4 DAL 1
  2. 2 VAN 6 DAL 5
  3. 3 VAN 3 DAL 2
  4. 4 VAN 3 DAL 4
  5. 5 VAN 2 DAL 3
  6. 6 VAN 3 DAL 5
  7. 7 VAN 2 DAL 5
  8. 8 VAN 3 DAL 6
  9. 9 VAN 0 DAL 4
  10. 10 VAN 0 DAL 5

Three other ways to ask

Each answers a different question, so none of them replaces the replay above.

No closing line for this game.

Needs the closing line, which this game has not got.

Every shot redrawn at its chance, overtime and the shootout replayed as near coin flips; the shots themselves and every call fixed. The narrowest view of luck.

How 4,000 replays ended

Canucks win 35% of them, Stars 65%. The line is what actually happened: Canucks by 2.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Canucks by 3+9.9%
Canucks by 27.0%
Canucks by 117.9%
Stars by 119.9%
Stars by 210.9%
Stars by 3+34.4%

Where the luck was

What the luck was worth

Every lucky and unlucky play, weighted by the moment it happened: its swing in win probability, added up by kind. A post hit in a blowout counts for nothing; the same post with a minute left in a tie game can be most of a win.

Swings add up across a game, so in one that went back and forth they can pass 100%. On the scoreboard the same luck was worth +2.6 goals to the Canucks: the final margin was Canucks by 2, without the luck Stars by 0.6. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Canucks4052.49+2.51
Stars4633.92−0.92

Regulation with both goalies in. Expected goals: our model of each shot’s chance from where and how it was taken (distance, angle, shot type, rebound, rush, strength), adjusted for the shooter’s and the goalie’s records. A team above expected finished better or met a weaker night in goal; 75% of the gap counts as luck (why that share).

Calls

Every penalty that put a team on the power play, and every goal taken off the board on review, with what it did to the helped team’s chance of winning at that moment. Calls don’t count toward luck by default: who draws penalties repeats from game to game like a skill (how calls are valued). Switch them on below.

WhenCallWin probability for
P1 1:35 High sticking on the Canucks (Jake DeBrusk): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DAL
P2 15:35 Slashing on the Canucks (Conor Garland): 2 minutes on the power play +3% DAL
P2 13:03 Hooking on the Stars (Radek Faksa): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VAN
P3 17:30 Tripping on the Canucks (Aatu Räty): 2 minutes on the power play +3% DAL
P3 12:56 Hooking on the Stars (Thomas Harley): 2 minutes on the power play +2% VAN
P3 2:35 Interference on the Canucks (Tyler Myers): 2 minutes on the power play +1% DAL
P3 1:02 Tripping on the Stars (Miro Heiskanen): 2 minutes on the power play +6% VAN

When it happened

Stars’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 87%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.

Our in-game win probability: the score and the time left, starting from the betting line (or the home edge alone when there is none), with goals at the league’s rates for the score. Overtime is drawn at a fixed width. Shaded above the middle while the Stars were ahead in it, below while the Canucks were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 15:31 Mavrik Bourque scored on a snap shot from 38 feetShooting · 2% chance +15% DAL –
2 P1 0:38 Mikko Rantanen scored on a snap shot from 38 feetShooting · 8% chance +13% DAL –
3 P2 13:20 Filip Chytil scored on a snap shot from 16 feetShooting · 19% chance +12% VAN –
4 P2 11:10 Brock Boeser scored on a tip from 9 feetShooting · 14% chance +18% VAN –
5 P2 9:54 Max Sasson scored on a snap shot from 22 feetShooting · 16% chance +18% VAN –
6 P2 1:06 Conor Garland scored on a backhand shot from 8 feetShooting · 11% chance +15% VAN –
7 P3 2:08 Wyatt Johnston scored on a snap shot from 7 feetShooting · 22% chance +5% DAL –
8 P3 1:02 Tripping on the Stars (Miro Heiskanen): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +6% VAN –

Adjust the assumptions

Think finishing is more skill than we do, or that the calls were luck? Change it and the coin-flip replay reruns in your browser.

Only coin-flips re-rolled

Canucks 43% · Stars 57%

Final margin
Canucks by 2
Luck in goals
2.6 for the Canucks
Luck-adjusted margin
Stars by 0.6
Replay with same day's form
Canucks 35% · Stars 65% unchanged: why
How much of each is luck?

0% treats it as skill, 100% as pure luck. The tick is our fit.

What counts
Flip a play

Force the other outcome, in this game and in every replay: a goal becomes a save, a post goes in, a penalty goes the other way.

About these numbers

Play-by-play from the NHL via fastRhockey; expected goals, in-game win probability and the replays are our own models, fitted on every game since 2018-19 (methodology and validation). Blocked shots aren’t replayed (their location is the block’s, not the shot’s). No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.

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