luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · November 29, 2025 · SO

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

Red Wings at Bruins, Nov 29, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Bruins beat the Red Wings 3–2, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Bruins win 4 of 10. Luck ran their way: shootout alone was worth 51 points of win probability to the Bruins.

The biggest swing (SO): the Bruins won the shootout, worth 51 points of win probability to the Bruins.

Final (SO)

Detroit Red Wings 2
Boston Bruins 3

November 29, 2025 · TD Garden

Luck index +55 Bruins lucky · −55 Red Wings

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 6, Bruins win 4.

  1. 1 DET 5 BOS 1
  2. 2 DET 5 BOS 2
  3. 3 DET 4 BOS 1
  4. 4 DET 4 BOS 2
  5. 5 DET 3 BOS 2
  6. 6 DET 3 BOS 2
  7. 7 DET 2 BOS 3
  8. 8 DET 3 BOS 4
  9. 9 DET 1 BOS 3
  10. 10 DET 3 BOS 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 3,999.9 replays ended

Red Wings win 55% of them, Bruins 45%. The line is what actually happened: Bruins by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Red Wings by 3+22.9%
Red Wings by 210.9%
Red Wings by 121.2%
Bruins by 121.0%
Bruins by 29.2%
Bruins 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 +1.2 goals to the Bruins: the final margin was Bruins by 1, without the luck Red Wings by 0.2. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Red Wings3823.08−1.08
Bruins3322.40−0.40

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 15:40 Tripping on the Bruins (Jonathan Aspirot): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DET
P1 8:57 Holding on the Bruins (Nikita Zadorov): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DET
P1 0:00 Hooking on the Red Wings (Ben Chiarot): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BOS
P2 12:44 Interference on the Bruins (Hampus Lindholm): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DET
P3 6:48 High sticking on the Red Wings (Ben Chiarot): 2 minutes on the power play +8% BOS
P3 5:56 Tripping on the Bruins (Andrew Peeke): 2 minutes on the power play +5% DET
OT 3:36 Hooking on the Bruins (Elias Lindholm): 2 minutes on the power play +12% DET

When it happened

Bruins’ 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 Bruins were ahead in it, below while the Red Wings were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P2 15:35 Morgan Geekie scored on a tip from 11 feetShooting · 10% chance +18% BOS –
2 P3 13:22 Lucas Raymond scored on a tip from 13 feetShooting · 7% chance +27% DET –
3 P3 6:48 High sticking on the Red Wings (Ben Chiarot): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +8% BOS –
4 P3 6:21 Morgan Geekie scored on a snap shot from 29 feetShooting · 13% chance +31% BOS –
5 P3 1:54 Michael Rasmussen scored on a tip from 6 feetShooting · 11% chance +38% DET –
6 P3 1:20 Tanner Jeannot missed the net with a slap shot from 22 feetShooting · 20% chance +9% DET –
7 SO The Bruins won the shootoutShootout · shootouts are close to coin flips +51% BOS –
8 OT 3:36 Hooking on the Bruins (Elias Lindholm): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +12% 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 56% · Bruins 44%

Final margin
Bruins by 1
Luck in goals
1.2 for the Bruins
Luck-adjusted margin
Red Wings by 0.2
Replay with same day's form
Red Wings 55% · Bruins 45% 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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