luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · November 29, 2025

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

Sharks at Golden Knights, Nov 29, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Golden Knights beat the Sharks 4–3, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 7 of 10.

The biggest swing (P2, 14:24 left): Colton Sissons scored on a poke shot from 5 feet, worth 17 points of win probability to the Golden Knights.

Final

San Jose Sharks 3
Vegas Golden Knights 4

November 29, 2025 · T-Mobile Arena

Luck index +33 Golden Knights lucky · −33 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. Sharks win 3, Golden Knights win 7.

  1. 1 SJS 3 VGK 0
  2. 2 SJS 3 VGK 2
  3. 3 SJS 2 VGK 1
  4. 4 SJS 2 VGK 3
  5. 5 SJS 3 VGK 4
  6. 6 SJS 0 VGK 2
  7. 7 SJS 3 VGK 5
  8. 8 SJS 0 VGK 3
  9. 9 SJS 3 VGK 6
  10. 10 SJS 0 VGK 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 4,000.2 replays ended

Sharks win 33% of them, Golden Knights 67%. The line is what actually happened: Golden Knights by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Sharks by 3+6.7%
Sharks by 26.2%
Sharks by 119.7%
Golden Knights by 121.4%
Golden Knights by 213.2%
Golden Knights by 3+32.8%

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 +0.4 goals to the Sharks: the final margin was Golden Knights by 1, without the luck Golden Knights by 1.4. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Sharks3532.11+0.89
Golden Knights4242.98+1.02

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
P2 18:26 Hooking on the Sharks (Dmitry Orlov): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VGK
P2 8:58 Hooking on the Sharks (Barclay Goodrow): 2 minutes on the power play +3% VGK
P2 5:54 Hooking on the Golden Knights (Cole Reinhardt): 2 minutes on the power play +1% SJS
P3 0:35 Cross checking on the Golden Knights (Brayden McNabb): 2 minutes on the power play +6% SJS

When it happened

Golden Knights’ chance of winning

As low as 35% 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 Golden Knights were ahead in it, below while the Sharks were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 12:26 Will Smith scored on a snap shot from 30 feetShooting · 8% chance +15% SJS –
2 P1 3:47 Tomas Hertl scored on a wrist shot from 20 feetShooting · 15% chance +16% VGK –
3 P2 14:24 Colton Sissons scored on a poke shot from 5 feetShooting · 14% chance +17% VGK –
4 P2 12:58 Mitch Marner scored on a wraparound from 5 feetShooting · 3% chance +14% VGK –
5 P2 7:22 Tomas Hertl scored on a tip from 17 feetShooting · 11% chance +6% VGK –
6 P2 0:25 William Eklund scored on a backhand shot from 9 feetShooting · 10% chance +13% SJS –
7 P3 0:35 Cross checking on the Golden Knights (Brayden McNabb): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +6% SJS –
8 P3 0:23 Alexander Wennberg’s wrist shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 17% chance +8% VGK –

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

Sharks 21% · Golden Knights 79%

Final margin
Golden Knights by 1
Luck in goals
0.4 for the Sharks
Luck-adjusted margin
Golden Knights by 1.4
Replay with same day's form
Sharks 33% · Golden Knights 67% 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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