luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · November 2, 2025 · SO

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

Red Wings at Sharks, Nov 2, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Red Wings beat the Sharks 3–2, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 7 of 10. The Sharks had the bounces: shooting alone was worth 30 points of win probability to the Sharks.

The game turned on a luck play (SO): the Red Wings won the shootout, worth 50 points of win probability to the Red Wings.

Final (SO)

Detroit Red Wings 3
San Jose Sharks 2

November 2, 2025 · SAP Center at San Jose

Luck index +29 Red Wings lucky · −29 Sharks

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. Red Wings win 7, Sharks win 3.

  1. 1 DET 4 SJS 0
  2. 2 DET 3 SJS 0
  3. 3 DET 4 SJS 1
  4. 4 DET 2 SJS 0
  5. 5 DET 5 SJS 3
  6. 6 DET 2 SJS 1
  7. 7 DET 2 SJS 1
  8. 8 DET 1 SJS 2
  9. 9 DET 0 SJS 1
  10. 10 DET 1 SJS 3

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

Red Wings win 71% of them, Sharks 29%. The line is what actually happened: Red Wings by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Red Wings by 3+34.9%
Red Wings by 214.6%
Red Wings by 121.7%
Sharks by 121.4%
Sharks by 24.2%
Sharks by 3+3.2%

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 +0.3 goals to the Sharks: the final margin was Red Wings by 1, without the luck Red Wings by 1.3. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Red Wings4622.69−0.69
Sharks2321.01+0.99

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 17:03 Hooking on the Sharks (Philipp Kurashev): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DET
P1 7:48 Unsportsmanlike conduct bench on the Sharks (SJS): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DET
P2 16:07 Tripping on the Red Wings (Travis Hamonic): 2 minutes on the power play +5% SJS
P3 6:32 Roughing on the Red Wings (Moritz Seider): 2 minutes on the power play +6% SJS

When it happened

Sharks’ 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 Sharks were ahead in it, below while the Red Wings were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P2 1:55 Lucas Raymond scored on a wrist shot from 30 feetShooting · 6% chance +23% DET –
2 P3 19:11 Jeff Skinner scored on a tip from 10 feetShooting · 7% chance +24% SJS –
3 P3 9:44 Moritz Seider scored on a wrist shot from 53 feetShooting · 2% chance +32% DET –
4 P3 8:00 Ethan Cardwell missed the net with a slap shot from 21 feetShooting · 13% chance +5% DET –
5 P3 6:32 Roughing on the Red Wings (Moritz Seider): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +6% SJS –
6 P3 3:05 Sam Dickinson scored on a wrist shot from 19 feetShooting · 15% chance +35% SJS –
7 P3 2:52 Emmitt Finnie’s wrist shot from 19 feet was savedShooting · 15% chance +6% SJS –
8 SO The game turned hereThe Red Wings won the shootoutShootout · shootouts are close to coin flips +49% DET –

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

Red Wings 81% · Sharks 19%

Final margin
Red Wings by 1
Luck in goals
0.3 for the Sharks
Luck-adjusted margin
Red Wings by 1.3
Replay with same day's form
Red Wings 71% · Sharks 29% 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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