luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · October 26, 2025

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

Stars at Predators, Oct 26, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Stars beat the Predators 3–2, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 6 of 10.

The game turned on a luck play (P2, 3:31 left): Wyatt Johnston scored on a backhand shot from 8 feet, worth 21 points of win probability to the Stars. The biggest single swing (P3, 9:16 left): Mikko Rantanen scored on a wrist shot from 11 feet.

Final

Dallas Stars 3
Nashville Predators 2

October 26, 2025 · Bridgestone Arena

Luck index +36 Stars lucky · −36 Predators

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. Stars win 6, Predators win 4.

  1. 1 DAL 6 NSH 1
  2. 2 DAL 5 NSH 1
  3. 3 DAL 5 NSH 2
  4. 4 DAL 3 NSH 1
  5. 5 DAL 5 NSH 4
  6. 6 DAL 5 NSH 4
  7. 7 DAL 1 NSH 2
  8. 8 DAL 1 NSH 2
  9. 9 DAL 2 NSH 4
  10. 10 DAL 2 NSH 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 replays ended

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

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Stars by 3+33.5%
Stars by 211.6%
Stars by 118.7%
Predators by 118.3%
Predators by 26.7%
Predators by 3+11.2%

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 +1.2 goals to the Predators: the final margin was Stars by 1, without the luck Stars by 2.2. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Stars4433.64−0.64
Predators4122.80−0.80

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 18:03 Holding on the Predators (Erik Haula): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DAL
P1 12:48 Interference on the Stars (Mikko Rantanen): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NSH
P1 8:15 Tripping on the Predators (Filip Forsberg): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DAL
P1 7:35 Tripping on the Predators (Cole Smith): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DAL
P1 6:54 Hooking on the Stars (Wyatt Johnston): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NSH
P2 16:49 Tripping on the Predators (Tyson Jost): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DAL
P3 11:15 Delaying game puck over glass on the Predators (Nicolas Hague): 2 minutes on the power play +7% DAL

When it happened

Predators’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 88%. 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 Predators were ahead in it, below while the Stars were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 11:59 Jonathan Marchessault’s snap shot from 5 feet was savedShooting · 40% chance +7% DAL –
2 P1 11:58 Jonathan Marchessault scored on a snap shot from 8 feetShooting · 30% chance +12% NSH –
3 P2 12:45 Spencer Stastney scored on a snap shot from 30 feetShooting · 7% chance +14% NSH –
4 P2 10:24 Oskar Bäck scored on a tip from 15 feetShooting · 7% chance +14% DAL –
5 P2 3:31 The game turned hereWyatt Johnston scored on a backhand shot from 8 feetShooting · 10% chance +21% DAL –
6 P3 17:35 Adam Erne’s wrist shot from 5 feet was savedShooting · 22% chance +6% NSH –
7 P3 11:15 Delaying game puck over glass on the Predators (Nicolas Hague): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +7% DAL –
8 P3 9:16 Mikko Rantanen scored on a wrist shot from 11 feetShooting · 13% chance +29% DAL –

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

Stars 89% · Predators 11%

Final margin
Stars by 1
Luck in goals
1.2 for the Predators
Luck-adjusted margin
Stars by 2.2
Replay with same day's form
Stars 64% · Predators 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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