2025-26 regular season · October 23, 2025
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Blackhawks at Lightning, Oct 23, 2025: who deserved to win?
The Blackhawks beat the Lightning 3–2, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Blackhawks win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 18 points of win probability to the Blackhawks.
The game turned on a luck play (P2, 9:44 left): Ryan Donato scored on a snap shot from 37 feet, worth 20 points of win probability to the Blackhawks. The biggest single swing (P3, 0:54 left): Ryan Donato scored on a wrist shot from 24 feet.
Final
 Chicago Blackhawks | 3 |
|---|---|
 Tampa Bay Lightning | 2 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +53 Blackhawks lucky · −53 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. Blackhawks win 5, Lightning win 5.
- 1 CHI 6 TBL 2
- 2 CHI 5 TBL 2
- 3 CHI 3 TBL 1
- 4 CHI 3 TBL 2
- 5 CHI 4 TBL 3
- 6 CHI 2 TBL 3
- 7 CHI 2 TBL 3
- 8 CHI 3 TBL 5
- 9 CHI 2 TBL 5
- 10 CHI 0 TBL 4
Three other ways to ask
Each answers a different question, so none of them replaces the replay above.
Before puck drop
No closing line for this game.
Same teams, fresh game
Needs the closing line, which this game has not got.
Only coin-flips re-rolled
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
Blackhawks win 47% of them, Lightning 53%. The line is what actually happened: Blackhawks by 1.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Blackhawks by 3+ | 18.1% |
| Blackhawks by 2 | 9.1% |
| Blackhawks by 1 | 19.5% |
| Lightning by 1 | 21.6% |
| Lightning by 2 | 9.6% |
| Lightning by 3+ | 22.2% |
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.
| Shooting | Unblocked attempts | Goals | Expected goals | Above expected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Blackhawks | 41 | 3 | 2.78 | +0.22 |
 Lightning | 54 | 2 | 3.05 | −1.05 |
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.
| When | Call | Win probability for |
|---|---|---|
| P1 9:34 | Interference on the Lightning (Emil Lilleberg): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% CHI |
| P1 4:50 | Unsportsmanlike conduct on the Blackhawks (Nick Foligno): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% TBL |
| P1 4:14 | Holding on the Lightning (Jake Guentzel): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% CHI |
| P1 3:17 | Too many men on the ice on the Blackhawks (CHI): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% TBL |
| P3 17:24 | Holding on the Lightning (Darren Raddysh): 2 minutes on the power play | +6% CHI |
| P3 16:00 | High sticking double minor on the Lightning (Yanni Gourde): 4 minutes on the power play | +13% CHI |
| P3 11:39 | Hooking on the Blackhawks (Landon Slaggert): 2 minutes on the power play | +7% TBL |
| P3 7:12 | High sticking on the Lightning (Emil Lilleberg): 2 minutes on the power play | +8% CHI |
| P3 6:22 | Holding on the Blackhawks (Sam Rinzel): 2 minutes on the power play | +8% TBL |
When it happened
Lightning’ chance of winning
As low as 0% and as high as 54%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 9:19 | Frank Nazar scored on a snap shot from 12 feetShooting · 23% chance | +13% CHI | – |
| 2 | P2 13:03 | Jake Guentzel scored on a tip from 8 feetShooting · 10% chance | +19% TBL | – |
| 3 | P2 9:44 | The game turned hereRyan Donato scored on a snap shot from 37 feetShooting · 6% chance | +20% CHI | – |
| 4 | P2 0:42 | Ryan McDonagh scored on a snap shot from 23 feetShooting · 13% chance | +22% TBL | – |
| 5 | P3 16:00 | High sticking double minor on the Lightning (Yanni Gourde): 4 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +13% CHI | – |
| 6 | P3 7:12 | High sticking on the Lightning (Emil Lilleberg): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +8% CHI | – |
| 7 | P3 6:22 | Holding on the Blackhawks (Sam Rinzel): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +8% TBL | – |
| 8 | P3 0:54 | Ryan Donato scored on a wrist shot from 24 feetShooting · 9% chance | +41% CHI | – |
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
Blackhawks 46% · Lightning 54%
- Final margin
- Blackhawks by 1
- Luck in goals
- 1.0 for the Blackhawks
- Luck-adjusted margin
- even
- Replay with same day's form
- Blackhawks 47% · Lightning 53% unchanged: why
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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