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.

Predators at Blues, Dec 27, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Blues beat the Predators 3–2, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Blues win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 42 points of win probability to the Blues.

The biggest swing (P2, 2:57 left): A Predators goal came off the board on review (off side), worth 19 points of win probability to the Blues.

Final

Nashville Predators 2
St. Louis Blues 3

December 27, 2025 · Enterprise Center

Luck index +47 Blues lucky · −47 Predators

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. Predators win 5, Blues win 5.

  1. 1 NSH 6 STL 2
  2. 2 NSH 5 STL 2
  3. 3 NSH 4 STL 2
  4. 4 NSH 6 STL 5
  5. 5 NSH 2 STL 1
  6. 6 NSH 2 STL 3
  7. 7 NSH 5 STL 6
  8. 8 NSH 3 STL 5
  9. 9 NSH 2 STL 5
  10. 10 NSH 2 STL 6

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

Predators win 47% of them, Blues 53%. The line is what actually happened: Blues by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Predators by 3+18.1%
Predators by 29.4%
Predators by 119.9%
Blues by 120.7%
Blues by 210.2%
Blues by 3+21.7%

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 +0.5 goals to the Blues: the final margin was Blues by 1, without the luck Blues by 0.5. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Predators5223.35−1.35
Blues3332.97+0.03

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 16:44 Tripping on the Blues (Brayden Schenn): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NSH
P1 12:42 Hooking on the Predators (Fedor Svechkov): 2 minutes on the power play +4% STL
P2 5:06 Hooking on the Blues (Logan Mailloux): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NSH
P2 2:57 A Predators goal came off the board on review (off side) +19% STL
P3 9:17 High sticking on the Predators (Ryan O'Reilly): 2 minutes on the power play +2% STL

When it happened

Blues’ chance of winning

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 Blues were ahead in it, below while the Predators were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 11:15 Brayden Schenn scored on a tip from 4 feetShooting · 11% chance +15% STL –
2 P1 8:19 Tyson Jost scored on a tip from 11 feetShooting · 8% chance +16% NSH –
3 P1 1:46 Pavel Buchnevich scored on a backhand shot from 7 feetShooting · 9% chance +17% STL –
4 P2 2:57 A Predators goal came off the board on review (off side)Overturned goals +19% STL –
5 P3 15:20 Pavel Buchnevich scored on a wrist shot from 12 feetShooting · 4% chance +14% STL –
6 P3 7:57 Fedor Svechkov scored on a wrist shot from 19 feetShooting · 9% chance +11% NSH –
7 P3 4:04 Brady Skjei’s snap shot from 22 feet was savedShooting · 17% chance +7% STL –
8 P3 0:02 Luke Evangelista’s wrist shot from 18 feet was savedShooting · 15% chance +7% STL –

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

Predators 40% · Blues 60%

Final margin
Blues by 1
Luck in goals
0.5 for the Blues
Luck-adjusted margin
Blues by 0.5
Replay with same day's form
Predators 47% · Blues 53% 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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