luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · October 17, 2025 · OT

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

Lightning at Red Wings, Oct 17, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Red Wings beat the Lightning 2–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Red Wings win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: overtime alone was worth 49 points of win probability to the Red Wings.

The biggest swing (OT): the Red Wings won in overtime, worth 49 points of win probability to the Red Wings.

Final (OT)

Tampa Bay Lightning 1
Detroit Red Wings 2

October 17, 2025 · Little Caesars Arena

Luck index +54 Red Wings lucky · −54 Lightning

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. Lightning win 5, Red Wings win 5.

  1. 1 TBL 5 DET 1
  2. 2 TBL 3 DET 0
  3. 3 TBL 3 DET 1
  4. 4 TBL 3 DET 2
  5. 5 TBL 4 DET 3
  6. 6 TBL 3 DET 4
  7. 7 TBL 3 DET 4
  8. 8 TBL 2 DET 4
  9. 9 TBL 5 DET 7
  10. 10 TBL 2 DET 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 4,000.2 replays ended

Lightning win 54% of them, Red Wings 46%. The line is what actually happened: Red Wings by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Lightning by 3+23.1%
Lightning by 210.4%
Lightning by 120.6%
Red Wings by 121.1%
Red Wings by 29.5%
Red Wings by 3+15.4%

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 +1.3 goals to the Red Wings: the final margin was Red Wings by 1, without the luck Lightning by 0.3. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Lightning4812.97−1.97
Red Wings4412.56−1.56

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 11:07 High sticking on the Red Wings (Jacob Bernard-Docker): 2 minutes on the power play +4% TBL
P2 19:39 Delaying game puck over glass on the Red Wings (Axel Sandin-Pellikka): 2 minutes on the power play +4% TBL
P2 14:51 Roughing on the Lightning (Yanni Gourde): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DET
P2 4:44 Holding on the Red Wings (Michael Brandsegg-Nygård): 2 minutes on the power play +4% TBL
P2 2:32 Slashing on the Lightning (Anthony Cirelli): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DET
P3 15:56 Delaying game puck over glass on the Lightning (Conor Geekie): 2 minutes on the power play +5% DET

When it happened

Red Wings’ chance of winning

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 Red Wings were ahead in it, below while the Lightning were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 6:58 Axel Sandin-Pellikka scored on a wrist shot from 52 feetShooting · 2% chance +17% DET –
2 P2 1:18 James van Riemsdyk’s snap shot from 6 feet was savedShooting · 32% chance +5% TBL –
3 P3 15:56 Delaying game puck over glass on the Lightning (Conor Geekie): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% DET –
4 P3 12:21 Jake Guentzel missed the net with a slap shot from 15 feetShooting · 19% chance +6% DET –
5 P3 9:25 Jack Finley’s tip from 5 feet was savedShooting · 16% chance +5% DET –
6 P3 9:24 Jack Finley’s wrist shot from 3 feet was savedShooting · 36% chance +12% DET –
7 P3 3:43 J.J. Moser scored on a slap shot from 55 feetShooting · 2% chance +39% TBL –
8 OT The Red Wings won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +49% DET –

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

Lightning 57% · Red Wings 43%

Final margin
Red Wings by 1
Luck in goals
1.3 for the Red Wings
Luck-adjusted margin
Lightning by 0.3
Replay with same day's form
Lightning 54% · Red Wings 46% 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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