luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · January 1, 2026

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

Capitals at Senators, Jan 1, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Senators beat the Capitals 4–3, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 6 of 10. The Capitals had the bounces: goaltending alone was worth 18 points of win probability to the Capitals.

The biggest swing (P3, 2:22 left): Fabian Zetterlund scored on a snap shot from 18 feet, worth 36 points of win probability to the Senators.

Final

Washington Capitals 3
Ottawa Senators 4

January 1, 2026 · Canadian Tire Centre

Luck index +39 Senators lucky · −39 Capitals

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. Capitals win 4, Senators win 6.

  1. 1 WSH 6 OTT 3
  2. 2 WSH 3 OTT 1
  3. 3 WSH 4 OTT 3
  4. 4 WSH 4 OTT 3
  5. 5 WSH 1 OTT 2
  6. 6 WSH 2 OTT 3
  7. 7 WSH 2 OTT 3
  8. 8 WSH 1 OTT 3
  9. 9 WSH 1 OTT 4
  10. 10 WSH 3 OTT 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 4,000.2 replays ended

Capitals win 39% of them, Senators 61%. The line is what actually happened: Senators by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Capitals by 3+9.5%
Capitals by 28.6%
Capitals by 121.3%
Senators by 123.9%
Senators by 211.9%
Senators by 3+24.8%

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 Capitals: the final margin was Senators by 1, without the luck Senators by 1.5. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Capitals3932.09+0.91
Senators4242.66+1.34

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 15:39 High sticking on the Capitals (Alex Ovechkin): 2 minutes on the power play +4% OTT
P1 10:44 Roughing on the Senators (Artem Zub): 2 minutes on the power play +4% WSH
P1 2:07 High sticking on the Senators (Nick Jensen): 2 minutes on the power play +4% WSH
P2 16:47 Cross checking on the Senators (Nick Cousins): 2 minutes on the power play +3% WSH
P2 11:39 Slashing on the Capitals (Connor McMichael): 2 minutes on the power play +4% OTT
P2 10:37 Tripping on the Senators (David Perron): 2 minutes on the power play +4% WSH
P3 16:21 Tripping on the Capitals (Matt Roy): 2 minutes on the power play +5% OTT
P3 8:39 Slashing on the Capitals (Anthony Beauvillier): 2 minutes on the power play +5% OTT

When it happened

Senators’ chance of winning

As low as 16% 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 Senators were ahead in it, below while the Capitals were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 11:47 Tom Wilson scored on a wrist shot from 12 feetShooting · 13% chance +15% WSH –
2 P1 1:01 Dylan Strome scored on a wrist shot from 41 feetShooting · 6% chance +15% WSH –
3 P2 12:18 Nick Jensen scored on a wrist shot from 36 feetShooting · 2% chance +16% OTT –
4 P2 0:29 Ridly Greig scored on a deflected shot from 9 feetShooting · 8% chance +23% OTT –
5 P3 17:13 David Perron scored on a snap shot from 16 feetShooting · 11% chance +23% OTT –
6 P3 4:07 Aliaksei Protas scored on a wrist shot from 26 feetShooting · 10% chance +35% WSH –
7 P3 2:22 Fabian Zetterlund scored on a snap shot from 18 feetShooting · 15% chance +36% OTT –
8 P3 1:00 Aliaksei Protas’s wrist shot from 20 feet was savedShooting · 16% chance +7% OTT –

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

Capitals 21% · Senators 79%

Final margin
Senators by 1
Luck in goals
0.5 for the Capitals
Luck-adjusted margin
Senators by 1.5
Replay with same day's form
Capitals 39% · Senators 61% 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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