luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 9, 2025

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

Bruins at Blues, Dec 9, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Bruins beat the Blues 5–2, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 6 of 10.

The game turned on a luck play (P2, 5:26 left): Mark Kastelic scored on a deflected shot from 9 feet, worth 21 points of win probability to the Bruins. The biggest single swing (P3, 11:59 left): Mark Kastelic scored on a wrist shot from 5 feet.

Final

Boston Bruins 5
St. Louis Blues 2

December 9, 2025 · Enterprise Center

Luck index +37 Bruins lucky · −37 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. Bruins win 6, Blues win 4.

  1. 1 BOS 7 STL 2
  2. 2 BOS 3 STL 0
  3. 3 BOS 4 STL 1
  4. 4 BOS 2 STL 0
  5. 5 BOS 3 STL 2
  6. 6 BOS 3 STL 2
  7. 7 BOS 3 STL 4
  8. 8 BOS 2 STL 3
  9. 9 BOS 2 STL 4
  10. 10 BOS 2 STL 5

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

Bruins win 63% of them, Blues 37%. The line is what actually happened: Bruins by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Bruins by 3+31.7%
Bruins by 211.7%
Bruins by 119.9%
Blues by 119.2%
Blues by 27.2%
Blues by 3+10.3%

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 +0.2 goals to the Blues: the final margin was Bruins by 3, without the luck Bruins by 3.2. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Bruins5043.25+0.75
Blues3622.20−0.20

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 16:06 Slashing on the Bruins (Pavel Zacha): 2 minutes on the power play +4% STL
P1 11:35 Tripping on the Bruins (Hampus Lindholm): 2 minutes on the power play +3% STL
P1 7:37 Interference on the Blues (Logan Mailloux): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BOS
P1 0:05 High sticking on the Blues (Nick Bjugstad): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BOS

When it happened

Blues’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 74%. 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 Blues were ahead in it, below while the Bruins were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 14:33 Robert Thomas scored on a slap shot from 35 feetShooting · 13% chance +14% STL –
2 P1 0:05 High sticking on the Blues (Nick Bjugstad): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% BOS –
3 P2 7:12 Fraser Minten scored on a wrist shot from 6 feetShooting · 6% chance +21% BOS –
4 P2 5:26 The game turned hereMark Kastelic scored on a deflected shot from 9 feetShooting · 10% chance +21% BOS –
5 P3 16:52 Pius Suter’s wrist shot from 12 feet was savedShooting · 14% chance +4% BOS –
6 P3 15:09 Robert Thomas scored on a snap shot from 11 feetShooting · 21% chance +23% STL –
7 P3 11:59 Mark Kastelic scored on a wrist shot from 5 feetShooting · 24% chance +24% BOS –
8 P3 8:27 Fraser Minten scored on a slap shot from 33 feetShooting · 10% chance +12% 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

Bruins 95% · Blues 5%

Final margin
Bruins by 3
Luck in goals
0.2 for the Blues
Luck-adjusted margin
Bruins by 3.2
Replay with same day's form
Bruins 63% · Blues 37% 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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