luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 20, 2025

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

Blackhawks at Senators, Dec 20, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Senators beat the Blackhawks 6–4, and the replays back it up: with the way both teams actually played, the Senators win 8 of 10. The Blackhawks had the bounces: goaltending alone was worth 29 points of win probability to the Blackhawks.

The biggest swing (P3, 18:15 left): David Perron scored on a snap shot from 30 feet, worth 23 points of win probability to the Senators.

Final

Chicago Blackhawks 4
Ottawa Senators 6

December 20, 2025 · Canadian Tire Centre

Luck index +19 Senators about even · −19 Blackhawks

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. Blackhawks win 2, Senators win 8.

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

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 4,000.1 replays ended

Blackhawks win 19% of them, Senators 81%. The line is what actually happened: Senators by 2.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Blackhawks by 3+3.7%
Blackhawks by 23.4%
Blackhawks by 111.7%
Senators by 113.9%
Senators by 210.4%
Senators by 3+57.0%

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 +0.6 goals to the Blackhawks: the final margin was Senators by 2, without the luck Senators by 2.6. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Blackhawks3241.89+2.11
Senators6164.70+1.30

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 13:24 Delaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Blackhawks (CHI): 2 minutes on the power play +3% OTT
P1 7:13 High sticking double minor on the Blackhawks (Matt Grzelcyk): 2 minutes on the power play +4% OTT
P1 5:24 Too many men on the ice on the Senators (OTT): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CHI
P1 0:33 Cross checking on the Blackhawks (Ryan Greene): 2 minutes on the power play +4% OTT
P2 12:31 Delaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Senators (OTT): 2 minutes on the power play +5% CHI
P2 11:07 High sticking on the Senators (Nick Jensen): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CHI
P3 19:29 Roughing on the Blackhawks (Jason Dickinson): 2 minutes on the power play +6% OTT
P3 10:35 Holding on the Blackhawks (Artyom Levshunov): 2 minutes on the power play +5% OTT
P3 3:28 Roughing on the Blackhawks (Ryan Donato): 2 minutes on the power play +1% OTT

When it happened

Senators’ 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 Senators were ahead in it, below while the Blackhawks were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 13:24 Brady Tkachuk scored on a deflected shot from 2 feetShooting · 26% chanceDelaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Blackhawks (CHI): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +15% OTT –
2 P2 18:07 Ilya Mikheyev scored on a wrist shot from 23 feetShooting · 8% chance +17% CHI –
3 P2 11:58 Tim Stützle scored on a wrist shot from 10 feetShooting · 17% chance +17% OTT –
4 P2 10:05 Andre Burakovsky scored on a slap shot from 36 feetShooting · 7% chance +19% CHI –
5 P2 5:53 Brady Tkachuk scored on a wrist shot from 31 feetShooting · 7% chance +21% OTT –
6 P2 1:28 Ilya Mikheyev scored on a backhand shot from 9 feetShooting · 10% chance +22% CHI –
7 P3 18:15 David Perron scored on a snap shot from 30 feetShooting · 13% chance +23% OTT –
8 P3 14:29 David Perron scored on a wrist shot from 30 feetShooting · 8% chance +13% 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

Blackhawks 5% · Senators 95%

Final margin
Senators by 2
Luck in goals
0.6 for the Blackhawks
Luck-adjusted margin
Senators by 2.6
Replay with same day's form
Blackhawks 19% · Senators 81% 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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