luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · December 31, 2025 · SO

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

Wild at Sharks, Dec 31, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Sharks beat the Wild 4–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Sharks win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: shootout alone was worth 51 points of win probability to the Sharks.

The biggest swing (SO): the Sharks won the shootout, worth 51 points of win probability to the Sharks.

Final (SO)

Minnesota Wild 3
San Jose Sharks 4

December 31, 2025 · SAP Center at San Jose

Luck index +50 Sharks lucky · −50 Wild

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. Wild win 5, Sharks win 5.

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

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

Wild win 50% of them, Sharks 50%. The line is what actually happened: Sharks by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Wild by 3+15.8%
Wild by 211.0%
Wild by 123.5%
Sharks by 124.8%
Sharks by 210.0%
Sharks by 3+14.9%

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 +1.1 goals to the Sharks: the final margin was Sharks by 1, without the luck Wild by 0.1. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Wild3832.14+0.86
Sharks3731.97+1.03

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 16:38 Hooking on the Sharks (Pavol Regenda): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MIN
P2 5:10 Slashing on the Wild (Zach Bogosian): 2 minutes on the power play +5% SJS

When it happened

Sharks’ chance of winning

As low as 34% 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 Sharks were ahead in it, below while the Wild were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 9:22 Vladimir Tarasenko scored on a snap shot from 35 feetShooting · 6% chance +16% MIN –
2 P2 18:46 Igor Chernyshov scored on a wrist shot from 19 feetShooting · 14% chance +17% SJS –
3 P2 15:08 Joel Eriksson Ek missed the net with a wrist shot from 4 feetShooting · 29% chance +6% SJS –
4 P2 3:13 Jeff Skinner scored on a wrist shot from 40 feetShooting · 5% chance +22% SJS –
5 P3 15:44 Macklin Celebrini scored on a wrist shot from 20 feetShooting · 9% chance +13% SJS –
6 P3 13:20 Marcus Foligno scored on a wrist shot from 30 feetShooting · 2% chance +14% MIN –
7 P3 11:13 Mats Zuccarello scored on a snap shot from 34 feetShooting · 9% chance +28% MIN –
8 SO The Sharks won the shootoutShootout · shootouts are close to coin flips +51% SJS –

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

Wild 54% · Sharks 46%

Final margin
Sharks by 1
Luck in goals
1.1 for the Sharks
Luck-adjusted margin
Wild by 0.1
Replay with same day's form
Wild 50% · Sharks 50% 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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