luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · November 20, 2025

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

Stars at Canucks, Nov 20, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Stars beat the Canucks 4–2, but the replays lean toward the Canucks: they take 7 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 40 points of win probability to the Stars.

The biggest swing (P3, 9:13 left): Colin Blackwell scored on a wrist shot from 15 feet, worth 29 points of win probability to the Stars.

Final

Dallas Stars 4
Vancouver Canucks 2

November 20, 2025 · Rogers Arena

Luck index +68 Stars very lucky · −68 Canucks

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 3, Canucks win 7.

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

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 4,000.1 replays ended

Stars win 32% of them, Canucks 68%. The line is what actually happened: Stars by 2.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Stars by 3+9.9%
Stars by 26.3%
Stars by 115.9%
Canucks by 118.2%
Canucks by 211.9%
Canucks by 3+37.8%

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 +2.5 goals to the Stars: the final margin was Stars by 2, without the luck Canucks by 0.5. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Stars3242.50+1.50
Canucks5624.66−2.66

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 7:06 Slashing on the Stars (Sam Steel): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VAN
P1 3:05 Slashing on the Canucks (Linus Karlsson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DAL
P2 19:29 Tripping on the Stars (Esa Lindell): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VAN
P2 15:50 Slashing on the Stars (Mikko Rantanen): 2 minutes on the power play +5% VAN
P2 15:10 Interference on the Stars (Mavrik Bourque): 2 minutes on the power play +5% VAN
P3 18:31 Tripping on the Stars (Lian Bichsel): 2 minutes on the power play +6% VAN
P3 12:13 Holding on the Canucks (Drew O'Connor): 2 minutes on the power play +7% DAL

When it happened

Canucks’ 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 Canucks were ahead in it, below while the Stars were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 19:05 Mavrik Bourque scored on a wrist shot from 12 feetShooting · 6% chance +15% DAL –
2 P1 16:54 Linus Karlsson scored on a wrist shot from 31 feetShooting · 5% chance +15% VAN –
3 P1 12:16 Jason Robertson scored on a wrist shot from 25 feetShooting · 7% chance +16% DAL –
4 P1 5:35 Elias Pettersson scored on a bat shot from 4 feetShooting · 19% chance +14% VAN –
5 P3 17:13 Elias Pettersson’s snap shot from 15 feet was savedShooting · 25% chance +7% DAL –
6 P3 12:13 Holding on the Canucks (Drew O'Connor): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +7% DAL –
7 P3 10:57 Roope Hintz’s snap shot from 20 feet was savedShooting · 26% chance +8% VAN –
8 P3 9:13 Colin Blackwell scored on a wrist shot from 15 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 41% · Canucks 59%

Final margin
Stars by 2
Luck in goals
2.5 for the Stars
Luck-adjusted margin
Canucks by 0.5
Replay with same day's form
Stars 32% · Canucks 68% 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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