luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 27, 2025

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

Lightning at Panthers, Dec 27, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Lightning beat the Panthers 4–2, but the replays lean toward the Panthers: they take 7 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 49 points of win probability to the Lightning.

The biggest swing (P1, 0:08 left): Pontus Holmberg scored on a snap shot from 32 feet, worth 18 points of win probability to the Lightning.

Final

Tampa Bay Lightning 4
Florida Panthers 2

December 27, 2025 · Amerant Bank Arena

Luck index +69 Lightning very lucky · −69 Panthers

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. Lightning win 3, Panthers win 7.

  1. 1 TBL 7 FLA 4
  2. 2 TBL 4 FLA 3
  3. 3 TBL 3 FLA 2
  4. 4 TBL 4 FLA 5
  5. 5 TBL 2 FLA 3
  6. 6 TBL 2 FLA 4
  7. 7 TBL 1 FLA 4
  8. 8 TBL 1 FLA 4
  9. 9 TBL 1 FLA 5
  10. 10 TBL 3 FLA 9

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

Lightning win 31% of them, Panthers 69%. The line is what actually happened: Lightning by 2.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Lightning by 3+8.1%
Lightning by 25.9%
Lightning by 116.7%
Panthers by 118.3%
Panthers by 211.0%
Panthers by 3+40.0%

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 +2.2 goals to the Lightning: the final margin was Lightning by 2, without the luck Panthers by 0.2. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Lightning3232.43+0.57
Panthers4724.03−2.03

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 16:35 Roughing on the Lightning (Yanni Gourde): 2 minutes on the power play +4% FLA
P1 13:12 Tripping on the Panthers (A.J. Greer): 2 minutes on the power play +3% TBL
P1 7:11 Cross checking on the Lightning (Steven Santini): 2 minutes on the power play +4% FLA
P1 5:45 Holding on the Panthers (Aaron Ekblad): 2 minutes on the power play +4% TBL
P2 16:12 Interference on the Panthers (Mackie Samoskevich): 2 minutes on the power play +3% TBL
P2 13:01 Roughing on the Lightning (Curtis Douglas): 2 minutes on the power play +3% FLA
P2 9:46 Interference on the Panthers (Aaron Ekblad): 2 minutes on the power play +4% TBL
P2 1:30 Roughing on the Lightning (Anthony Cirelli): 2 minutes on the power play +5% FLA
P3 18:26 Roughing on the Lightning (Scott Sabourin): 4 minutes on the power play +10% FLA
P3 14:26 High sticking on the Lightning (Max Crozier): 2 minutes on the power play +5% FLA
P3 10:30 Slashing on the Panthers (Sam Bennett): 2 minutes on the power play +5% TBL
P3 9:07 Slashing on the Lightning (Oliver Bjorkstrand): 2 minutes on the power play +6% FLA
P3 7:46 Boarding on the Panthers (Sam Bennett): 2 minutes on the power play +6% TBL
P3 5:21 Roughing on the Lightning (Charle-Edouard D'Astous): 2 minutes on the power play +6% FLA
P3 0:33 Roughing on the Lightning (Scott Sabourin): 2 minutes on the power play 0% FLA

When it happened

Panthers’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 71%. 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 Panthers were ahead in it, below while the Lightning were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 14:23 Eetu Luostarinen scored on a backhand shot from 8 feetShooting · 10% chance +14% FLA –
2 P1 6:55 Jake Guentzel scored on a snap shot from 25 feetShooting · 10% chance +15% TBL –
3 P1 0:08 Pontus Holmberg scored on a snap shot from 32 feetShooting · 8% chance +18% TBL –
4 P2 17:29 Nikita Kucherov scored on a backhand shot from 7 feetShooting · 11% chance +14% TBL –
5 P2 12:55 Brad Marchand scored on a snap shot from 17 feetShooting · 16% chance +14% FLA –
6 P3 18:26 Roughing on the Lightning (Scott Sabourin): 4 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +10% FLA –
7 P3 14:07 Sam Reinhart missed the net with a snap shot from 21 feetShooting · 28% chance +8% TBL –
8 P3 8:20 Brad Marchand missed the net with a snap shot from 15 feetShooting · 23% chance +8% 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

Lightning 47% · Panthers 53%

Final margin
Lightning by 2
Luck in goals
2.2 for the Lightning
Luck-adjusted margin
Panthers by 0.2
Replay with same day's form
Lightning 31% · Panthers 69% 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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