luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 21, 2025 · OT

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

Capitals at Red Wings, Dec 21, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Red Wings beat the Capitals 3–2, but the replays lean toward the Capitals: they take 8 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: overtime alone was worth 49 points of win probability to the Red Wings.

The biggest swing (OT): the Red Wings won in overtime, worth 49 points of win probability to the Red Wings.

Final (OT)

Washington Capitals 2
Detroit Red Wings 3

December 21, 2025 · Little Caesars Arena

Luck index +76 Red Wings very lucky · −76 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. Capitals win 8, Red Wings win 2.

  1. 1 WSH 6 DET 0
  2. 2 WSH 6 DET 1
  3. 3 WSH 6 DET 2
  4. 4 WSH 6 DET 3
  5. 5 WSH 3 DET 0
  6. 6 WSH 3 DET 1
  7. 7 WSH 4 DET 3
  8. 8 WSH 4 DET 3
  9. 9 WSH 4 DET 5
  10. 10 WSH 0 DET 2

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 4,000.2 replays ended

Capitals win 76% of them, Red Wings 24%. The line is what actually happened: Red Wings by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Capitals by 3+49.7%
Capitals by 210.4%
Capitals by 116.2%
Red Wings by 115.3%
Red Wings by 24.0%
Red Wings by 3+4.4%

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 +2.9 goals to the Red Wings: the final margin was Red Wings by 1, without the luck Capitals by 1.9. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Capitals5524.12−2.12
Red Wings3521.61+0.39

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 16:37 Tripping on the Red Wings (Elmer Soderblom): 2 minutes on the power play +4% WSH
P2 12:38 Tripping on the Capitals (Brandon Duhaime): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DET
OT 4:25 Hooking on the Capitals (Dylan Strome): 2 minutes on the power play +12% DET

When it happened

Red Wings’ chance of winning

As low as 32% and as high as 100%. 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 Red Wings were ahead in it, below while the Capitals were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 5:43 Ethen Frank scored on a backhand shot from 11 feetShooting · 9% chance +16% WSH –
2 P2 11:23 Lucas Raymond scored on a snap shot from 41 feetShooting · 7% chance +20% DET –
3 P2 6:16 John Leonard scored on a deflected shot from 17 feetShooting · 5% chance +21% DET –
4 P3 14:10 Jakob Chychrun snap, 19 ft: above crossbar (22% chance)Shooting +6% DET –
5 P3 9:38 Ethen Frank scored on a wrist shot from 27 feetShooting · 10% chance +29% WSH –
6 P3 6:02 Nic Dowd’s wrist shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 16% chance +6% DET –
7 OT The Red Wings won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +49% DET –
8 OT 4:25 Hooking on the Capitals (Dylan Strome): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +12% 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

Capitals 86% · Red Wings 14%

Final margin
Red Wings by 1
Luck in goals
2.9 for the Red Wings
Luck-adjusted margin
Capitals by 1.9
Replay with same day's form
Capitals 76% · Red Wings 24% 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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