luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 29, 2025

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

Sharks at Ducks, Dec 29, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Sharks beat the Ducks 5–4, but the replays lean toward the Ducks: they take 8 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 37 points of win probability to the Sharks.

The biggest swing (P1, 9:17 left): Mario Ferraro scored on a tip from 7 feet, worth 16 points of win probability to the Sharks.

Final

San Jose Sharks 5
Anaheim Ducks 4

December 29, 2025 · Honda Center

Luck index +79 Sharks very lucky · −79 Ducks

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. Sharks win 2, Ducks win 8.

  1. 1 SJS 6 ANA 3
  2. 2 SJS 4 ANA 3
  3. 3 SJS 2 ANA 3
  4. 4 SJS 2 ANA 4
  5. 5 SJS 2 ANA 5
  6. 6 SJS 1 ANA 4
  7. 7 SJS 1 ANA 5
  8. 8 SJS 1 ANA 5
  9. 9 SJS 0 ANA 5
  10. 10 SJS 1 ANA 8

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 replays ended

Sharks win 21% of them, Ducks 79%. The line is what actually happened: Sharks by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Sharks by 3+3.5%
Sharks by 23.8%
Sharks by 113.5%
Ducks by 113.0%
Ducks by 210.9%
Ducks by 3+55.3%

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 +3.2 goals to the Sharks: the final margin was Sharks by 1, without the luck Ducks by 2.2. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Sharks2351.55+3.45
Ducks6344.87−0.87

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 4:27 Tripping on the Ducks (Drew Helleson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% SJS
P2 10:47 Tripping on the Sharks (Shakir Mukhamadullin): 2 minutes on the power play +3% ANA
P3 12:19 Hooking on the Sharks (Mario Ferraro): 2 minutes on the power play +5% ANA
P3 9:56 Tripping on the Ducks (Troy Terry): 2 minutes on the power play +5% SJS
P3 3:09 Tripping on the Sharks (John Klingberg): 2 minutes on the power play +6% ANA

When it happened

Ducks’ 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 Ducks were ahead in it, below while the Sharks were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 9:17 Mario Ferraro scored on a tip from 7 feetShooting · 7% chance +16% SJS –
2 P1 4:58 Troy Terry scored on a backhand shot from 3 feetShooting · 34% chance +12% ANA –
3 P1 0:48 Macklin Celebrini scored on a snap shot from 18 feetShooting · 20% chance +15% SJS –
4 P2 13:30 Igor Chernyshov scored on a backhand shot from 11 feetShooting · 10% chance +15% SJS –
5 P2 7:43 William Eklund scored on a snap shot from 20 feetShooting · 8% chance +8% SJS –
6 P3 16:53 Pavel Mintyukov scored on a snap shot from 25 feetShooting · 15% chance +14% ANA –
7 P3 6:13 Zack Ostapchuk scored on a tip from 25 feetShooting · 4% chance +11% SJS –
8 P3 4:02 Troy Terry scored on a wrist shot from 13 feetShooting · 10% chance +9% ANA –

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

Sharks 9% · Ducks 91%

Final margin
Sharks by 1
Luck in goals
3.2 for the Sharks
Luck-adjusted margin
Ducks by 2.2
Replay with same day's form
Sharks 21% · Ducks 79% 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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