luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 4, 2025

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

Blues at Bruins, Dec 4, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Bruins beat the Blues 5–2, 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: shooting alone was worth 21 points of win probability to the Bruins.

The biggest swing (P2, 13:56 left): Viktor Arvidsson scored on a slap shot from 39 feet, worth 14 points of win probability to the Bruins.

Final

St. Louis Blues 2
Boston Bruins 5

December 4, 2025 · TD Garden

Luck index +58 Bruins lucky · −58 Blues

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. Blues win 6, Bruins win 4.

  1. 1 STL 5 BOS 1
  2. 2 STL 4 BOS 1
  3. 3 STL 4 BOS 1
  4. 4 STL 4 BOS 2
  5. 5 STL 4 BOS 3
  6. 6 STL 2 BOS 1
  7. 7 STL 3 BOS 4
  8. 8 STL 1 BOS 2
  9. 9 STL 2 BOS 4
  10. 10 STL 1 BOS 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 3,999.8 replays ended

Blues win 58% of them, Bruins 42%. The line is what actually happened: Bruins by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Blues by 3+27.4%
Blues by 210.2%
Blues by 120.7%
Bruins by 120.7%
Bruins by 27.8%
Bruins by 3+13.1%

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 +3.1 goals to the Bruins: the final margin was Bruins by 3, without the luck Blues by 0.1. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Blues5823.58−1.58
Bruins3652.44+2.56

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 4:43 Hooking on the Bruins (Tanner Jeannot): 2 minutes on the power play +3% STL
P2 0:15 Interference on the Blues (Jake Neighbours): 2 minutes on the power play +1% BOS
P3 9:36 Cross checking on the Blues (Pavel Buchnevich): 2 minutes on the power play 0% BOS
P3 1:44 High sticking on the Bruins (Elias Lindholm): 2 minutes on the power play 0% STL

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 Blues were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 14:08 Michael Eyssimont’s wrist shot from 3 feet was savedShooting · 27% chance +4% STL –
2 P1 13:30 Alex Steeves scored on a snap shot from 19 feetShooting · 16% chance +14% BOS –
3 P1 8:35 Morgan Geekie scored on a snap shot from 13 feetShooting · 22% chance +10% BOS –
4 P1 4:43 Hooking on the Bruins (Tanner Jeannot): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +3% STL –
5 P2 18:01 Pavel Buchnevich scored on a snap shot from 26 feetShooting · 8% chance +13% STL –
6 P2 14:34 Pius Suter’s backhand shot from 4 feet was savedShooting · 13% chance +3% BOS –
7 P2 13:56 Viktor Arvidsson scored on a slap shot from 39 feetShooting · 3% chance +14% BOS –
8 P2 7:34 Pavel Zacha scored on a wrist shot from 33 feetShooting · 5% chance +7% BOS –

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

Blues 51% · Bruins 49%

Final margin
Bruins by 3
Luck in goals
3.1 for the Bruins
Luck-adjusted margin
Blues by 0.1
Replay with same day's form
Blues 58% · Bruins 42% 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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