2025-26 regular season · December 20, 2025
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Hurricanes at Lightning, Dec 20, 2025: who deserved to win?
The Lightning beat the Hurricanes 6–4, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 7 of 10. The Hurricanes had the bounces: goaltending alone was worth 28 points of win probability to the Hurricanes.
The game turned on a luck play (P2, 3:24 left): Jack Finley scored on a wrist shot from 7 feet, worth 21 points of win probability to the Lightning. The biggest single swing (P3, 13:22 left): Jake Guentzel scored on a backhand shot from 7 feet.
Final
 Carolina Hurricanes | 4 |
|---|---|
 Tampa Bay Lightning | 6 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +29 Lightning lucky · −29 Hurricanes
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. Hurricanes win 3, Lightning win 7.
- 1 CAR 4 TBL 1
- 2 CAR 2 TBL 1
- 3 CAR 4 TBL 3
- 4 CAR 1 TBL 2
- 5 CAR 1 TBL 2
- 6 CAR 2 TBL 4
- 7 CAR 2 TBL 5
- 8 CAR 1 TBL 4
- 9 CAR 2 TBL 6
- 10 CAR 1 TBL 6
Three other ways to ask
Each answers a different question, so none of them replaces the replay above.
Before puck drop
No closing line for this game.
Same teams, fresh game
Needs the closing line, which this game has not got.
Only coin-flips re-rolled
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
Hurricanes win 29% of them, Lightning 71%. The line is what actually happened: Lightning by 2.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Hurricanes by 3+ | 5.9% |
| Hurricanes by 2 | 5.0% |
| Hurricanes by 1 | 18.1% |
| Lightning by 1 | 18.9% |
| Lightning by 2 | 12.8% |
| Lightning by 3+ | 39.3% |
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.
| Shooting | Unblocked attempts | Goals | Expected goals | Above expected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Hurricanes | 35 | 4 | 1.82 | +2.18 |
 Lightning | 44 | 5 | 3.49 | +1.51 |
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.
| When | Call | Win probability for |
|---|---|---|
| P1 16:33 | Holding on the Lightning (Declan Carlile): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% CAR |
| P1 14:00 | Interference on the Hurricanes (Andrei Svechnikov): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% TBL |
| P1 9:25 | High sticking double minor on the Lightning (Jack Finley): 4 minutes on the power play | +6% CAR |
| P1 5:24 | High sticking on the Lightning (Zemgus Girgensons): 2 minutes on the power play | +2% CAR |
| P2 17:53 | Roughing on the Hurricanes (Mark Jankowski): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% TBL |
| P2 1:53 | Roughing on the Lightning (Darren Raddysh): 2 minutes on the power play | +6% CAR |
| P3 5:28 | Tripping on the Hurricanes (Andrei Svechnikov): 2 minutes on the power play | +5% TBL |
When it happened
Lightning’ chance of winning
As low as 8% and as high as 100%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 17:18 | Eric Robinson scored on a slap shot from 29 feetShooting · 5% chance | +15% CAR | – |
| 2 | P1 16:00 | Jackson Blake scored on a tip from 13 feetShooting · 5% chance | +14% CAR | – |
| 3 | P1 7:33 | Bradly Nadeau scored on a wrist shot from 19 feetShooting · 19% chance | +9% CAR | – |
| 4 | P2 18:40 | Brayden Point scored on a tip from 4 feetShooting · 18% chance | +13% TBL | – |
| 5 | P2 3:24 | The game turned hereJack Finley scored on a wrist shot from 7 feetShooting · 13% chance | +21% TBL | – |
| 6 | P3 17:13 | Andrei Svechnikov scored on a backhand shot from 6 feetShooting · 11% chance | +24% CAR | – |
| 7 | P3 16:47 | Ryan McDonagh scored on a wrist shot from 6 feetShooting · 17% chance | +23% TBL | – |
| 8 | P3 13:22 | Jake Guentzel scored on a backhand shot from 7 feetShooting · 14% chance | +25% TBL | – |
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
Hurricanes 16% · Lightning 84%
- Final margin
- Lightning by 2
- Luck in goals
- 0.1 for the Lightning
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Lightning by 1.9
- Replay with same day's form
- Hurricanes 29% · Lightning 71% unchanged: why
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.
More from week 11, 2025-26
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- Maple Leafs at Stars Dec 21, 2025 · DAL 5–1 · replay 44% for the winner
- Ducks at Rangers Dec 15, 2025 · ANA 4–1 · replay 49% for the winner
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