luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 16, 2025

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

Flames at Sharks, Dec 16, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Sharks beat the Flames 6–3, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 7 of 10.

The biggest swing (P1, 5:37 left): Ryan Lomberg scored on a snap shot from 35 feet, worth 16 points of win probability to the Flames.

Final

Calgary Flames 3
San Jose Sharks 6

December 16, 2025 · SAP Center at San Jose

Luck index +34 Sharks lucky · −34 Flames

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. Flames win 3, Sharks win 7.

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

Flames win 34% of them, Sharks 66%. The line is what actually happened: Sharks by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Flames by 3+9.2%
Flames by 26.9%
Flames by 117.8%
Sharks by 120.0%
Sharks by 211.8%
Sharks by 3+34.3%

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 +0.9 goals to the Sharks: the final margin was Sharks by 3, without the luck Sharks by 2.1. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Flames3932.23+0.77
Sharks4353.34+1.66

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
P2 19:28 Cross checking on the Sharks (Timothy Liljegren): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CGY
P2 3:46 Tripping on the Sharks (William Eklund): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CGY
P3 10:22 Tripping on the Flames (Rasmus Andersson): 2 minutes on the power play +2% SJS

When it happened

Sharks’ 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 Sharks were ahead in it, below while the Flames were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 18:58 John Klingberg scored on a wrist shot from 30 feetShooting · 8% chance +14% SJS –
2 P1 14:00 Barclay Goodrow scored on a wrist shot from 11 feetShooting · 13% chance +11% SJS –
3 P1 8:59 Blake Coleman scored on a slap shot from 26 feetShooting · 9% chance +12% CGY –
4 P1 5:37 Ryan Lomberg scored on a snap shot from 35 feetShooting · 6% chance +16% CGY –
5 P1 0:19 Barclay Goodrow scored on a poke shot from 4 feetShooting · 12% chance +16% SJS –
6 P2 19:39 Blake Coleman’s wrist shot from 4 feet was savedShooting · 23% chance +4% SJS –
7 P2 3:46 Tripping on the Sharks (William Eklund): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% CGY –
8 P3 17:14 Macklin Celebrini scored on a deflected shot from 5 feetShooting · 16% chance +12% SJS –

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

Flames 9% · Sharks 91%

Final margin
Sharks by 3
Luck in goals
0.9 for the Sharks
Luck-adjusted margin
Sharks by 2.1
Replay with same day's form
Flames 34% · Sharks 66% 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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