luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · November 8, 2025

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

Capitals at Lightning, Nov 8, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Lightning beat the Capitals 3–2, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Lightning win 4 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 29 points of win probability to the Lightning.

The biggest swing (P3, 11:18 left): Brandon Hagel scored on a snap shot from 32 feet, worth 28 points of win probability to the Lightning.

Final

Washington Capitals 2
Tampa Bay Lightning 3

November 8, 2025 · Benchmark International Arena

Luck index +60 Lightning lucky · −60 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 6, Lightning win 4.

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

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

Capitals win 60% of them, Lightning 40%. The line is what actually happened: Lightning by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Capitals by 3+21.8%
Capitals by 213.1%
Capitals by 124.7%
Lightning by 123.9%
Lightning by 28.5%
Lightning by 3+7.9%

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 +1.5 goals to the Lightning: the final margin was Lightning by 1, without the luck Capitals by 0.5. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Capitals5022.48−0.48
Lightning2931.53+1.47

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 8:53 Hooking on the Lightning (Emil Lilleberg): 2 minutes on the power play +4% WSH
P1 6:01 High sticking on the Capitals (Aliaksei Protas): 2 minutes on the power play +4% TBL
P3 1:38 Hooking on the Capitals (John Carlson): 2 minutes on the power play +6% TBL
P3 0:16 A Capitals goal came off the board on review (off side) +25% TBL

When it happened

Lightning’ chance of winning

As low as 37% and as high as 100%. 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 Lightning were ahead in it, below while the Capitals were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 15:54 Brandon Duhaime scored on a snap shot from 10 feetShooting · 4% chance +16% WSH –
2 P1 13:53 Emil Lilleberg scored on a snap shot from 23 feetShooting · 15% chance +14% TBL –
3 P1 4:51 Jake Guentzel scored on a tip from 7 feetShooting · 13% chance +15% TBL –
4 P2 2:52 John Carlson scored on a shot from 54 feetShooting · 2% chance +23% WSH –
5 P3 11:18 Brandon Hagel scored on a snap shot from 32 feetShooting · 10% chance +28% TBL –
6 P3 1:38 Hooking on the Capitals (John Carlson): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +6% TBL –
7 P3 0:23 Alex Ovechkin missed the net with a wrist shot from 14 feetShooting · 15% chance +7% TBL –
8 P3 0:16 A Capitals goal came off the board on review (off side)Overturned goals +25% TBL –

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 69% · Lightning 31%

Final margin
Lightning by 1
Luck in goals
1.5 for the Lightning
Luck-adjusted margin
Capitals by 0.5
Replay with same day's form
Capitals 60% · Lightning 40% 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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