luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · November 22, 2025

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

Lightning at Capitals, Nov 22, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Lightning beat the Capitals 5–3, but the replays lean toward the Capitals: they take 7 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 36 points of win probability to the Lightning.

The biggest swing (P1, 14:39 left): Oliver Bjorkstrand scored on a snap shot from 27 feet, worth 15 points of win probability to the Lightning.

Final

Tampa Bay Lightning 5
Washington Capitals 3

November 22, 2025 · Capital One Arena

Luck index +70 Lightning very lucky · −70 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. Lightning win 3, Capitals win 7.

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

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

Lightning win 30% of them, Capitals 70%. The line is what actually happened: Lightning by 2.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Lightning by 3+8.0%
Lightning by 25.6%
Lightning by 116.4%
Capitals by 117.4%
Capitals by 211.1%
Capitals by 3+41.5%

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 +2.7 goals to the Lightning: the final margin was Lightning by 2, without the luck Capitals by 0.7. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Lightning2552.02+2.98
Capitals4834.35−1.35

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 17:21 Slashing on the Lightning (J.J. Moser): 2 minutes on the power play +3% WSH
P1 16:35 High sticking on the Capitals (Ethen Frank): 2 minutes on the power play +4% TBL
P1 12:54 Hooking on the Lightning (Nikita Kucherov): 2 minutes on the power play +4% WSH
P2 18:48 Roughing on the Lightning (Brandon Hagel): 2 minutes on the power play +2% WSH
P2 1:35 Instigator on the Lightning (Curtis Douglas): 2 minutes on the power play +3% WSH
P3 19:02 Hooking on the Capitals (Rasmus Sandin): 2 minutes on the power play +3% TBL
P3 13:30 Tripping on the Lightning (Anthony Cirelli): 2 minutes on the power play +5% WSH
P3 12:43 Slashing on the Lightning (Emil Lilleberg): 2 minutes on the power play +5% WSH
P3 11:35 Interference on the Capitals (Jakob Chychrun): 2 minutes on the power play +5% TBL

When it happened

Capitals’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 69%. 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 Capitals were ahead in it, below while the Lightning were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 18:54 Justin Sourdif scored on a wrist shot from 7 feetShooting · 16% chance +13% WSH –
2 P1 17:07 Brandon Hagel scored on a snap shot from 36 feetShooting · 8% chance +14% TBL –
3 P1 14:39 Oliver Bjorkstrand scored on a snap shot from 27 feetShooting · 8% chance +15% TBL –
4 P1 8:24 Brandon Hagel scored on a slap shot from 28 feetShooting · 14% chance +13% TBL –
5 P2 14:34 Jakob Chychrun scored on a snap shot from 55 feetShooting · 1% chance +10% WSH –
6 P3 14:36 Ethen Frank scored on a snap shot from 34 feetShooting · 7% chance +15% WSH –
7 P3 12:12 Tom Wilson missed the net with a slap shot from 10 feetShooting · 30% chance +9% TBL –
8 P3 11:52 Tom Wilson’s snap shot from 9 feet was savedShooting · 27% chance +8% 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

Lightning 39% · Capitals 61%

Final margin
Lightning by 2
Luck in goals
2.7 for the Lightning
Luck-adjusted margin
Capitals by 0.7
Replay with same day's form
Lightning 30% · Capitals 70% 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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