2025-26 regular season · December 4, 2025
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Penguins at Lightning, Dec 4, 2025: who deserved to win?
The Penguins beat the Lightning 4–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Penguins win 4 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 41 points of win probability to the Penguins.
The biggest swing (P3, 2:43 left): Evgeni Malkin scored on a wrist shot from 14 feet, worth 38 points of win probability to the Penguins.
Final
 Pittsburgh Penguins | 4 |
|---|---|
 Tampa Bay Lightning | 3 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +60 Penguins lucky · −60 Lightning
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. Penguins win 4, Lightning win 6.
- 1 PIT 5 TBL 2
- 2 PIT 5 TBL 3
- 3 PIT 5 TBL 4
- 4 PIT 7 TBL 6
- 5 PIT 2 TBL 3
- 6 PIT 3 TBL 4
- 7 PIT 3 TBL 5
- 8 PIT 1 TBL 4
- 9 PIT 3 TBL 7
- 10 PIT 0 TBL 5
Three other ways to ask
Each answers a different question, so none of them replaces the replay above.
Before puck drop
No closing line for this game.
Same teams, fresh game
Needs the closing line, which this game has not got.
Only coin-flips re-rolled
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
Penguins win 40% of them, Lightning 60%. The line is what actually happened: Penguins by 1.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Penguins by 3+ | 15.4% |
| Penguins by 2 | 7.1% |
| Penguins by 1 | 17.7% |
| Lightning by 1 | 18.7% |
| Lightning by 2 | 10.4% |
| Lightning by 3+ | 30.8% |
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.
| Shooting | Unblocked attempts | Goals | Expected goals | Above expected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Penguins | 47 | 4 | 3.17 | +0.83 |
 Lightning | 58 | 3 | 4.78 | −1.78 |
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.
| When | Call | Win probability for |
|---|---|---|
| P1 15:01 | Holding on the Lightning (Max Crozier): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% PIT |
| P1 8:46 | Holding on the Penguins (Parker Wotherspoon): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% TBL |
| P1 6:02 | Slashing on the Penguins (Ryan Graves): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% TBL |
| P1 0:24 | Cross checking on the Penguins (Sidney Crosby): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% TBL |
| P2 10:47 | Tripping on the Lightning (Darren Raddysh): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% PIT |
| P2 9:44 | Interference on the Lightning (Declan Carlile): 2 minutes on the power play | +2% PIT |
| P2 5:58 | Slashing on the Penguins (Erik Karlsson): 2 minutes on the power play | +1% TBL |
| P3 18:58 | Tripping on the Penguins (Kris Letang): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% TBL |
| P3 16:42 | Tripping on the Penguins (Evgeni Malkin): 2 minutes on the power play | +5% TBL |
| P3 13:00 | Hooking on the Lightning (Charle-Edouard D'Astous): 2 minutes on the power play | +5% PIT |
| P3 1:07 | A Lightning goal came off the board on review (missed stoppage) | +25% PIT |
When it happened
Lightning’ chance of winning
As low as 0% and as high as 54%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 13:48 | Ville Koivunen scored on a snap shot from 33 feetShooting · 10% chance | +15% PIT | – |
| 2 | P2 12:07 | Evgeni Malkin scored on a wrist shot from 11 feetShooting · 16% chance | +14% PIT | – |
| 3 | P2 10:11 | Ben Kindel scored on a tip from 11 feetShooting · 12% chance | +8% PIT | – |
| 4 | P3 18:43 | Brandon Hagel scored on a slap shot from 43 feetShooting · 5% chance | +16% TBL | – |
| 5 | P3 8:16 | Brandon Hagel scored on a snap shot from 13 feetShooting · 19% chance | +28% TBL | – |
| 6 | P3 2:43 | Evgeni Malkin scored on a wrist shot from 14 feetShooting · 9% chance | +38% PIT | – |
| 7 | P3 1:07 | A Lightning goal came off the board on review (missed stoppage)Overturned goals | +25% PIT | – |
| 8 | P3 0:10 | Nikita Kucherov missed the net with a snap shot from 8 feetShooting · 29% chance | +14% PIT | – |
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
Penguins 27% · Lightning 73%
- Final margin
- Penguins by 1
- Luck in goals
- 2.0 for the Penguins
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Lightning by 1.0
- Replay with same day's form
- Penguins 40% · Lightning 60% unchanged: why
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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