luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · October 21, 2025

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

Canucks at Penguins, Oct 21, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Penguins beat the Canucks 5–1, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 6 of 10.

The biggest swing (P2, 5:39 left): Tommy Novak scored on a wrist shot from 24 feet, worth 21 points of win probability to the Penguins.

Final

Vancouver Canucks 1
Pittsburgh Penguins 5

October 21, 2025 · PPG Paints Arena

Luck index +36 Penguins lucky · −36 Canucks

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 4, Penguins win 6.

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

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 3,999.9 replays ended

Canucks win 36% of them, Penguins 64%. The line is what actually happened: Penguins by 4.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Canucks by 3+13.4%
Canucks by 26.6%
Canucks by 116.2%
Penguins by 116.1%
Penguins by 210.7%
Penguins by 3+37.0%

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 +2.1 goals to the Penguins: the final margin was Penguins by 4, without the luck Penguins by 1.9. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Canucks4913.14−2.14
Penguins4254.32+0.68

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 11:37 Hooking on the Canucks (Evander Kane): 2 minutes on the power play +4% PIT
P1 6:46 Tripping on the Penguins (Ryan Shea): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VAN
P1 2:53 Too many men on the ice on the Canucks (VAN): 2 minutes on the power play +4% PIT
P2 7:02 Tripping on the Canucks (Drew O'Connor): 2 minutes on the power play +5% PIT
P3 18:59 Holding on the Penguins (Evgeni Malkin): 2 minutes on the power play +1% VAN
P3 15:53 Holding on the Canucks (Marcus Pettersson): 2 minutes on the power play +1% PIT
P3 12:44 Interference on the Penguins (Filip Hallander): 2 minutes on the power play 0% VAN
P3 3:09 Cross checking on the Canucks (Pierre-Olivier Joseph): 2 minutes on the power play 0% PIT

When it happened

Penguins’ chance of winning

As low as 36% 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 Penguins were ahead in it, below while the Canucks were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 18:42 Conor Garland scored on a slap shot from 31 feetShooting · 7% chance +15% VAN –
2 P1 11:27 Evgeni Malkin’s wrist shot from 4 feet was savedShooting · 34% chance +6% VAN –
3 P1 8:21 Connor Dewar scored on a tip from 23 feetShooting · 6% chance +16% PIT –
4 P1 5:01 Linus Karlsson’s wrist shot from 4 feet was savedShooting · 39% chance +7% PIT –
5 P2 16:39 Joseph LaBate’s wrist shot from 5 feet was savedShooting · 25% chance +5% PIT –
6 P2 7:02 Tripping on the Canucks (Drew O'Connor): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% PIT –
7 P2 5:39 Tommy Novak scored on a wrist shot from 24 feetShooting · 9% chance +21% PIT –
8 P2 3:42 Sidney Crosby scored on a wrist shot from 30 feetShooting · 8% chance +14% PIT –

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 19% · Penguins 81%

Final margin
Penguins by 4
Luck in goals
2.1 for the Penguins
Luck-adjusted margin
Penguins by 1.9
Replay with same day's form
Canucks 36% · Penguins 64% 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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