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.

Red Wings at Capitals, Dec 20, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Red Wings beat the Capitals 5–2, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 7 of 10.

The biggest swing (P1, 18:55 left): John Leonard scored on a snap shot from 10 feet, worth 13 points of win probability to the Red Wings.

Final

Detroit Red Wings 5
Washington Capitals 2

December 20, 2025 · Capital One Arena

Luck index +27 Red Wings lucky · −27 Capitals

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. Red Wings win 7, Capitals win 3.

  1. 1 DET 8 WSH 1
  2. 2 DET 5 WSH 0
  3. 3 DET 5 WSH 1
  4. 4 DET 5 WSH 2
  5. 5 DET 4 WSH 2
  6. 6 DET 6 WSH 5
  7. 7 DET 5 WSH 4
  8. 8 DET 6 WSH 7
  9. 9 DET 5 WSH 6
  10. 10 DET 2 WSH 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 4,000.1 replays ended

Red Wings win 73% of them, Capitals 27%. The line is what actually happened: Red Wings by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Red Wings by 3+47.6%
Red Wings by 210.3%
Red Wings by 115.1%
Capitals by 115.8%
Capitals by 24.8%
Capitals by 3+6.4%

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 +0.4 goals to the Red Wings: the final margin was Red Wings by 3, without the luck Red Wings by 2.6. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Red Wings5144.52−0.52
Capitals4222.57−0.57

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 16:56 Holding on the Red Wings (Dylan Larkin): 2 minutes on the power play +4% WSH
P1 3:45 Hooking on the Capitals (John Carlson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DET
P2 13:18 Cross checking on the Red Wings (Axel Sandin-Pellikka): 2 minutes on the power play +2% WSH
P2 6:52 Hooking on the Capitals (Aliaksei Protas): 2 minutes on the power play +1% DET
P3 10:19 A Capitals goal came off the board on review (goal interference) +9% DET
P3 10:19 Delaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Capitals (WSH): 2 minutes on the power play +2% DET

When it happened

Capitals’ 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 Capitals were ahead in it, below while the Red Wings were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 18:55 John Leonard scored on a snap shot from 10 feetShooting · 20% chance +13% DET –
2 P1 16:56 Holding on the Red Wings (Dylan Larkin): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% WSH –
3 P1 3:45 Hooking on the Capitals (John Carlson): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% DET –
4 P1 2:55 Dylan Larkin’s wrist shot from 3 feet was savedShooting · 35% chance +5% WSH –
5 P2 18:23 James van Riemsdyk scored on a snap shot from 6 feetShooting · 21% chance +12% DET –
6 P2 14:05 Elmer Soderblom scored on a backhand shot from 8 feetShooting · 9% chance +9% DET –
7 P3 11:30 Martin Fehérváry scored on a snap shot from 31 feetShooting · 11% chance +4% WSH –
8 P3 10:19 A Capitals goal came off the board on review (goal interference)Overturned goalsDelaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Capitals (WSH): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +11% DET –

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

Red Wings 91% · Capitals 9%

Final margin
Red Wings by 3
Luck in goals
0.4 for the Red Wings
Luck-adjusted margin
Red Wings by 2.6
Replay with same day's form
Red Wings 73% · Capitals 27% 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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