luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 11, 2025

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

Senators at Blue Jackets, Dec 11, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Senators beat the Blue Jackets 6–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Senators win 6 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 39 points of win probability to the Senators.

The biggest swing (P1, 13:02 left): David Perron scored on a backhand shot from 5 feet, worth 16 points of win probability to the Senators.

Final

Ottawa Senators 6
Columbus Blue Jackets 3

December 11, 2025 · Nationwide Arena

Luck index +45 Senators lucky · −45 Blue Jackets

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. Senators win 6, Blue Jackets win 4.

  1. 1 OTT 5 CBJ 2
  2. 2 OTT 3 CBJ 0
  3. 3 OTT 4 CBJ 2
  4. 4 OTT 2 CBJ 1
  5. 5 OTT 1 CBJ 0
  6. 6 OTT 2 CBJ 1
  7. 7 OTT 1 CBJ 2
  8. 8 OTT 1 CBJ 2
  9. 9 OTT 0 CBJ 2
  10. 10 OTT 0 CBJ 3

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

Senators win 55% of them, Blue Jackets 45%. The line is what actually happened: Senators by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Senators by 3+16.6%
Senators by 213.2%
Senators by 125.6%
Blue Jackets by 124.6%
Blue Jackets by 210.2%
Blue Jackets by 3+9.9%

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 +2.0 goals to the Senators: the final margin was Senators by 3, without the luck Senators by 1. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Senators3551.77+3.23
Blue Jackets3631.72+1.28

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 5:59 Holding on the Blue Jackets (Charlie Coyle): 2 minutes on the power play +3% OTT
P2 12:49 Too many men on the ice on the Senators (OTT): 2 minutes on the power play +3% CBJ
P3 8:27 High sticking on the Blue Jackets (Cole Sillinger): 2 minutes on the power play +2% OTT

When it happened

Blue Jackets’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 54%. 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 Blue Jackets were ahead in it, below while the Senators were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 13:02 David Perron scored on a backhand shot from 5 feetShooting · 6% chance +16% OTT –
2 P1 11:49 Drake Batherson scored on a snap shot from 28 feetShooting · 11% chance +13% OTT –
3 P1 5:05 Tim Stützle scored on a wrist shot from 27 feetShooting · 8% chance +10% OTT –
4 P1 1:56 Boone Jenner scored on a tip from 5 feetShooting · 15% chance +9% CBJ –
5 P1 0:34 Michael Amadio scored on a backhand shot from 7 feetShooting · 9% chance +9% OTT –
6 P2 16:58 Dante Fabbro scored on a slap shot from 49 feetShooting · 4% chance +10% CBJ –
7 P2 11:50 Dmitri Voronkov scored on a tip from 6 feetShooting · 15% chance +14% CBJ –
8 P2 2:01 Tim Stützle scored on a tip from 9 feetShooting · 8% chance +15% OTT –

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

Senators 78% · Blue Jackets 22%

Final margin
Senators by 3
Luck in goals
2.0 for the Senators
Luck-adjusted margin
Senators by 1.0
Replay with same day's form
Senators 55% · Blue Jackets 45% 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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