luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 27, 2025 · SO

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

Blackhawks at Stars, Dec 27, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Blackhawks beat the Stars 4–3, but the replays lean toward the Stars: they take 7 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: shootout alone was worth 50 points of win probability to the Blackhawks.

The game turned on a luck play (SO): the Blackhawks won the shootout, worth 50 points of win probability to the Blackhawks.

Final (SO)

Chicago Blackhawks 4
Dallas Stars 3

December 27, 2025 · American Airlines Center

Luck index +73 Blackhawks very lucky · −73 Stars

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 3, Stars win 7.

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

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

Blackhawks win 27% of them, Stars 73%. The line is what actually happened: Blackhawks by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Blackhawks by 3+7.2%
Blackhawks by 25.8%
Blackhawks by 114.1%
Stars by 116.2%
Stars by 210.1%
Stars by 3+46.5%

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 +2.6 goals to the Blackhawks: the final margin was Blackhawks by 1, without the luck Stars by 1.6. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Blackhawks3932.69+0.31
Stars4234.77−1.77

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 11:40 Tripping on the Blackhawks (Oliver Moore): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DAL
P2 14:34 Holding on the Blackhawks (Connor Murphy): 2 minutes on the power play +5% DAL
P2 2:04 Roughing on the Stars (Kyle Capobianco): 2 minutes on the power play +6% CHI
P2 0:41 Tripping on the Blackhawks (Arvid Soderblom): 2 minutes on the power play +6% DAL
P3 14:37 Tripping on the Blackhawks (Wyatt Kaiser): 2 minutes on the power play +7% DAL
P3 11:49 High sticking on the Stars (Jamie Benn): 2 minutes on the power play +7% CHI

When it happened

Stars’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 85%. 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 Stars were ahead in it, below while the Blackhawks were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 16:40 Tyler Bertuzzi scored on a snap shot from 17 feetShooting · 12% chance +14% CHI –
2 P1 8:29 Nils Lundkvist scored on a slap shot from 65 feetShooting · 1% chance +17% DAL –
3 P2 9:23 Jason Dickinson scored on a snap shot from 43 feetShooting · 5% chance +21% CHI –
4 P2 8:28 Justin Hryckowian scored on a snap shot from 20 feetShooting · 18% chance +18% DAL –
5 P3 13:04 Mikko Rantanen’s snap shot from 12 feet was savedShooting · 25% chance +7% CHI –
6 P3 8:42 Mikko Rantanen scored on a snap shot from 6 feetShooting · 20% chance +27% DAL –
7 P3 7:35 Tyler Bertuzzi scored on a snap shot from 5 feetShooting · 26% chance +25% CHI –
8 SO The game turned hereThe Blackhawks won the shootoutShootout · shootouts are close to coin flips +49% CHI –

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 20% · Stars 80%

Final margin
Blackhawks by 1
Luck in goals
2.6 for the Blackhawks
Luck-adjusted margin
Stars by 1.6
Replay with same day's form
Blackhawks 27% · Stars 73% 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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