luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · October 24, 2025

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

Capitals at Blue Jackets, Oct 24, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Capitals beat the Blue Jackets 5–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Capitals win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 48 points of win probability to the Capitals.

The biggest swing (P2, 1:41 left): John Carlson scored on a slap shot from 57 feet, worth 24 points of win probability to the Capitals.

Final

Washington Capitals 5
Columbus Blue Jackets 1

October 24, 2025 · Nationwide Arena

Luck index +48 Capitals lucky · −48 Blue Jackets

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. Capitals win 5, Blue Jackets win 5.

  1. 1 WSH 9 CBJ 3
  2. 2 WSH 4 CBJ 1
  3. 3 WSH 8 CBJ 5
  4. 4 WSH 8 CBJ 6
  5. 5 WSH 5 CBJ 4
  6. 6 WSH 4 CBJ 5
  7. 7 WSH 3 CBJ 4
  8. 8 WSH 2 CBJ 4
  9. 9 WSH 4 CBJ 7
  10. 10 WSH 2 CBJ 7

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

Capitals win 52% of them, Blue Jackets 48%. The line is what actually happened: Capitals by 4.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Capitals by 3+27.7%
Capitals by 28.7%
Capitals by 116.0%
Blue Jackets by 116.9%
Blue Jackets by 29.5%
Blue Jackets by 3+21.2%

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.

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 +3.0 goals to the Capitals: the final margin was Capitals by 4, without the luck Capitals by 1. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Capitals4454.37+0.63
Blue Jackets5414.37−3.37

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 3:56 Slashing on the Blue Jackets (Dmitri Voronkov): 2 minutes on the power play +4% WSH
P1 0:06 Tripping on the Capitals (Nic Dowd): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CBJ
P2 15:08 Holding the stick on the Blue Jackets (Kirill Marchenko): 2 minutes on the power play +5% WSH
P2 9:42 Slashing on the Capitals (Ethen Frank): 2 minutes on the power play +5% CBJ
P3 13:41 Slashing on the Capitals (Hendrix Lapierre): 2 minutes on the power play +1% CBJ
P3 7:25 Elbowing on the Blue Jackets (Mathieu Olivier): 5 minutes on the power play +5% WSH

When it happened

Blue Jackets’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 54%. 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 Blue Jackets were ahead in it, below while the Capitals were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P2 18:59 Sean Monahan’s snap shot from 15 feet was savedShooting · 24% chance +5% WSH –
2 P2 15:08 Holding the stick on the Blue Jackets (Kirill Marchenko): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% WSH –
3 P2 9:42 Slashing on the Capitals (Ethen Frank): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% CBJ –
4 P2 5:31 Egor Chinakhov’s snap shot from 17 feet was savedShooting · 20% chance +4% WSH –
5 P2 1:41 John Carlson scored on a slap shot from 57 feetShooting · 2% chance +24% WSH –
6 P3 18:24 Alex Ovechkin scored on a wrist shot from 29 feetShooting · 8% chance +15% WSH –
7 P3 17:20 Justin Sourdif scored on a snap shot from 14 feetShooting · 17% chance +5% WSH –
8 P3 7:25 Elbowing on the Blue Jackets (Mathieu Olivier): 5 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% WSH –

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

Capitals 64% · Blue Jackets 36%

Final margin
Capitals by 4
Luck in goals
3.0 for the Capitals
Luck-adjusted margin
Capitals by 1.0
Replay with same day's form
Capitals 52% · Blue Jackets 48% 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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