luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · October 16, 2025 · SO

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

Kraken at Senators, Oct 16, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Senators beat the Kraken 4–3, but the replays lean toward the Kraken: they take 6 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: shootout alone was worth 51 points of win probability to the Senators.

The biggest swing (SO): the Senators won the shootout, worth 51 points of win probability to the Senators.

Final (SO)

Seattle Kraken 3
Ottawa Senators 4

October 16, 2025 · Canadian Tire Centre

Luck index +64 Senators very lucky · −64 Kraken

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. Kraken win 6, Senators win 4.

  1. 1 SEA 7 OTT 2
  2. 2 SEA 5 OTT 2
  3. 3 SEA 4 OTT 1
  4. 4 SEA 4 OTT 2
  5. 5 SEA 4 OTT 3
  6. 6 SEA 4 OTT 3
  7. 7 SEA 2 OTT 3
  8. 8 SEA 2 OTT 3
  9. 9 SEA 1 OTT 2
  10. 10 SEA 1 OTT 4

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

Kraken win 64% of them, Senators 36%. The line is what actually happened: Senators by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Kraken by 3+33.6%
Kraken by 210.6%
Kraken by 119.8%
Senators by 119.9%
Senators by 27.3%
Senators by 3+8.9%

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 +1.9 goals to the Senators: the final margin was Senators by 1, without the luck Kraken by 0.9. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Kraken4333.34−0.34
Senators4532.11+0.89

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 14:25 Slashing on the Kraken (Adam Larsson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% OTT
P1 11:55 Tripping on the Kraken (Ryan Winterton): 2 minutes on the power play +4% OTT
P2 14:20 Holding on the Senators (Tyler Kleven): 2 minutes on the power play +5% SEA
P3 19:29 Interference on the Senators (Fabian Zetterlund): 2 minutes on the power play +6% SEA
P3 11:29 Tripping on the Senators (Thomas Chabot): 2 minutes on the power play +5% SEA

When it happened

Senators’ chance of winning

As low as 11% and as high as 100%. 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 Senators were ahead in it, below while the Kraken were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 15:03 Shane Wright scored on a backhand shot from 6 feetShooting · 10% chance +15% SEA –
2 P1 12:18 Shane Pinto scored on a wrist shot from 22 feetShooting · 12% chance +15% OTT –
3 P1 10:25 David Perron scored on a snap shot from 24 feetShooting · 13% chance +14% OTT –
4 P2 15:20 Chandler Stephenson scored on a wrist shot from 32 feetShooting · 7% chance +18% SEA –
5 P3 17:48 Jordan Eberle’s wrist shot from 6 feet was savedShooting · 23% chance +6% OTT –
6 P3 17:45 Chandler Stephenson scored on a wrist shot from 18 feetShooting · 15% chance +23% SEA –
7 P3 1:46 Dylan Cozens scored on a snap shot from 56 feetShooting · 1% chance +43% OTT –
8 SO The Senators won the shootoutShootout · shootouts are close to coin flips +51% OTT –

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

Kraken 69% · Senators 31%

Final margin
Senators by 1
Luck in goals
1.9 for the Senators
Luck-adjusted margin
Kraken by 0.9
Replay with same day's form
Kraken 64% · Senators 36% 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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