luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 18, 2025

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

Stars at Sharks, Dec 18, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Stars beat the Sharks 5–3, but the replays lean toward the Sharks: they take 7 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 26 points of win probability to the Stars.

The biggest swing (P2, 3:16 left): Collin Graf scored on a wrist shot from 37 feet, worth 16 points of win probability to the Sharks.

Final

Dallas Stars 5
San Jose Sharks 3

December 18, 2025 · SAP Center at San Jose

Luck index +65 Stars very lucky · −65 Sharks

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. Stars win 3, Sharks win 7.

  1. 1 DAL 7 SJS 4
  2. 2 DAL 3 SJS 2
  3. 3 DAL 3 SJS 2
  4. 4 DAL 0 SJS 1
  5. 5 DAL 1 SJS 2
  6. 6 DAL 4 SJS 5
  7. 7 DAL 2 SJS 4
  8. 8 DAL 3 SJS 6
  9. 9 DAL 0 SJS 4
  10. 10 DAL 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 3,999.9 replays ended

Stars win 35% of them, Sharks 65%. The line is what actually happened: Stars by 2.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Stars by 3+8.6%
Stars by 26.6%
Stars by 119.4%
Sharks by 120.5%
Sharks by 211.7%
Sharks by 3+33.2%

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 +2.1 goals to the Stars: the final margin was Stars by 2, without the luck Sharks by 0.1. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Stars3942.17+1.83
Sharks4933.72−0.72

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 11:02 Slashing on the Stars (Sam Steel): 2 minutes on the power play +4% SJS
P2 11:56 High sticking on the Sharks (Shakir Mukhamadullin): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DAL
P2 5:39 Tripping on the Stars (Sam Steel): 2 minutes on the power play +3% SJS
P3 7:42 Slashing on the Stars (Mikko Rantanen): 2 minutes on the power play +6% SJS

When it happened

Sharks’ 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 Sharks were ahead in it, below while the Stars were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 7:35 Roope Hintz scored on a wrist shot from 8 feetShooting · 17% chance +15% DAL –
2 P1 2:22 Wyatt Johnston scored on a wrist shot from 25 feetShooting · 10% chance +14% DAL –
3 P2 18:17 Shakir Mukhamadullin scored on a slap shot from 54 feetShooting · 2% chance +15% SJS –
4 P2 11:20 Wyatt Johnston scored on a wrist shot from 16 feetShooting · 17% chance +13% DAL –
5 P2 3:16 Collin Graf scored on a wrist shot from 37 feetShooting · 4% chance +16% SJS –
6 P2 0:43 Justin Hryckowian scored on a wrist shot from 36 feetShooting · 4% chance +16% DAL –
7 P3 15:28 Collin Graf scored on a wrist shot from 6 feetShooting · 20% chance +13% SJS –
8 P3 7:42 Slashing on the Stars (Mikko Rantanen): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +6% 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

Stars 51% · Sharks 49%

Final margin
Stars by 2
Luck in goals
2.1 for the Stars
Luck-adjusted margin
Sharks by 0.1
Replay with same day's form
Stars 35% · Sharks 65% 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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