luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · October 28, 2025

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

Capitals at Stars, Oct 28, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Stars beat the Capitals 1–0, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Stars win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 48 points of win probability to the Stars.

The biggest swing (P2, 19:17 left): Tyler Seguin scored on a snap shot from 26 feet, worth 18 points of win probability to the Stars.

Final

Washington Capitals 0
Dallas Stars 1

October 28, 2025 · American Airlines Center

Luck index +54 Stars lucky · −54 Capitals

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, Stars win 5.

  1. 1 WSH 4 DAL 0
  2. 2 WSH 4 DAL 1
  3. 3 WSH 3 DAL 1
  4. 4 WSH 3 DAL 2
  5. 5 WSH 1 DAL 0
  6. 6 WSH 1 DAL 2
  7. 7 WSH 2 DAL 3
  8. 8 WSH 2 DAL 4
  9. 9 WSH 1 DAL 4
  10. 10 WSH 2 DAL 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

Capitals win 54% of them, Stars 46%. The line is what actually happened: Stars by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Capitals by 3+20.6%
Capitals by 211.2%
Capitals by 122.1%
Stars by 122.0%
Stars by 29.3%
Stars by 3+14.8%

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 +0.2 goals to the Capitals: the final margin was Stars by 1, without the luck Stars by 1.1. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Capitals4102.66−2.66
Stars3012.10−1.10

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 10:08 Tripping on the Stars (Sam Steel): 2 minutes on the power play +4% WSH
P1 6:05 Interference on the Capitals (Tom Wilson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DAL
P1 3:19 Hooking on the Capitals (Aliaksei Protas): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DAL
P2 19:40 Hooking on the Capitals (Tom Wilson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DAL
P2 18:40 Holding on the Stars (Sam Steel): 2 minutes on the power play +4% WSH
P3 14:31 Tripping on the Capitals (Brandon Duhaime): 2 minutes on the power play +5% DAL
P3 5:04 Interference on the Stars (Lian Bichsel): 2 minutes on the power play +6% WSH

When it happened

Stars’ 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 Stars were ahead in it, below while the Capitals were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 6:05 Interference on the Capitals (Tom Wilson): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% DAL –
2 P1 3:19 Hooking on the Capitals (Aliaksei Protas): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% DAL –
3 P2 19:40 Hooking on the Capitals (Tom Wilson): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% DAL –
4 P2 19:17 Tyler Seguin scored on a snap shot from 26 feetShooting · 4% chance +18% DAL –
5 P3 16:57 Hendrix Lapierre missed the net with a snap shot from 7 feetShooting · 15% chance +4% DAL –
6 P3 14:31 Tripping on the Capitals (Brandon Duhaime): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% DAL –
7 P3 5:04 Interference on the Stars (Lian Bichsel): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% WSH –
8 P3 4:04 Tom Wilson’s tip from 9 feet was savedShooting · 12% chance +5% 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

Capitals 23% · Stars 77%

Final margin
Stars by 1
Luck in goals
0.2 for the Capitals
Luck-adjusted margin
Stars by 1.2
Replay with same day's form
Capitals 54% · Stars 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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