luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 5, 2025 · SO

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

Capitals at Ducks, Dec 5, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Ducks beat the Capitals 4–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Ducks win 6 of 10. Luck ran their way: shootout alone was worth 51 points of win probability to the Ducks.

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

Final (SO)

Washington Capitals 3
Anaheim Ducks 4

December 5, 2025 · Honda Center

Luck index +43 Ducks lucky · −43 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. Capitals win 4, Ducks win 6.

  1. 1 WSH 3 ANA 0
  2. 2 WSH 4 ANA 2
  3. 3 WSH 2 ANA 1
  4. 4 WSH 4 ANA 3
  5. 5 WSH 1 ANA 2
  6. 6 WSH 3 ANA 4
  7. 7 WSH 1 ANA 3
  8. 8 WSH 4 ANA 7
  9. 9 WSH 3 ANA 6
  10. 10 WSH 2 ANA 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 4,000 replays ended

Capitals win 43% of them, Ducks 57%. The line is what actually happened: Ducks by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Capitals by 3+13.9%
Capitals by 28.5%
Capitals by 120.5%
Ducks by 121.9%
Ducks by 210.7%
Ducks by 3+24.6%

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 +0.5 goals to the Ducks: the final margin was Ducks by 1, without the luck Ducks by 0.5. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Capitals3732.40+0.60
Ducks4933.09−0.09

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 8:26 Hooking on the Ducks (Beckett Sennecke): 2 minutes on the power play +4% WSH
P1 3:56 Roughing on the Capitals (Jakob Chychrun): 2 minutes on the power play +4% ANA
P2 19:38 Slashing on the Capitals (Jakob Chychrun): 2 minutes on the power play +4% ANA
P2 10:20 Tripping on the Capitals (Aliaksei Protas): 2 minutes on the power play +4% ANA
P2 8:14 Hooking on the Capitals (Jakob Chychrun): 2 minutes on the power play +4% ANA
P3 14:53 Interference on the Ducks (Frank Vatrano): 2 minutes on the power play +7% WSH
P3 11:08 Interference on the Capitals (Dylan Strome): 2 minutes on the power play +7% ANA
P3 10:15 Holding on the Ducks (Jackson LaCombe): 2 minutes on the power play +7% WSH

When it happened

Ducks’ chance of winning

As low as 28% 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 Ducks were ahead in it, below while the Capitals were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 10:31 Tom Wilson scored on a snap shot from 32 feetShooting · 10% chance +15% WSH –
2 P1 1:44 Cutter Gauthier scored on a wrist shot from 15 feetShooting · 14% chance +16% ANA –
3 P2 13:54 Ethen Frank scored on a wrist shot from 14 feetShooting · 13% chance +18% WSH –
4 P2 13:41 Ross Johnston scored on a tip from 10 feetShooting · 8% chance +19% ANA –
5 P2 12:22 Aliaksei Protas scored on a wrist shot from 9 feetShooting · 18% chance +17% WSH –
6 P2 2:01 Beckett Sennecke scored on a wrist shot from 9 feetShooting · 14% chance +21% ANA –
7 P3 10:15 Holding on the Ducks (Jackson LaCombe): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +7% WSH –
8 SO The Ducks won the shootoutShootout · shootouts are close to coin flips +51% ANA –

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

Capitals 38% · Ducks 62%

Final margin
Ducks by 1
Luck in goals
0.5 for the Ducks
Luck-adjusted margin
Ducks by 0.5
Replay with same day's form
Capitals 43% · Ducks 57% 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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