luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · January 1, 2026 · OT

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

Red Wings at Penguins, Jan 1, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Penguins beat the Red Wings 4–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Penguins win 4 of 10. Luck ran their way: overtime alone was worth 49 points of win probability to the Penguins.

The biggest swing (OT): the Penguins won in overtime, worth 49 points of win probability to the Penguins.

Final (OT)

Detroit Red Wings 3
Pittsburgh Penguins 4

January 1, 2026 · PPG Paints Arena

Luck index +58 Penguins lucky · −58 Red Wings

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. Red Wings win 6, Penguins win 4.

  1. 1 DET 6 PIT 2
  2. 2 DET 5 PIT 2
  3. 3 DET 4 PIT 1
  4. 4 DET 4 PIT 2
  5. 5 DET 2 PIT 1
  6. 6 DET 6 PIT 5
  7. 7 DET 4 PIT 5
  8. 8 DET 2 PIT 3
  9. 9 DET 1 PIT 3
  10. 10 DET 1 PIT 4

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

Red Wings win 58% of them, Penguins 42%. The line is what actually happened: Penguins by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Red Wings by 3+26.2%
Red Wings by 211.5%
Red Wings by 120.9%
Penguins by 121.0%
Penguins by 28.4%
Penguins by 3+12.2%

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 +1.4 goals to the Penguins: the final margin was Penguins by 1, without the luck Red Wings by 0.4. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Red Wings4732.87+0.13
Penguins4432.33+0.67

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 19:40 Tripping on the Penguins (Sidney Crosby): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DET
P1 16:16 Holding on the Red Wings (Nate Danielson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% PIT
P1 10:17 Holding on the Penguins (Brett Kulak): 2 minutes on the power play +3% DET
P1 7:13 Roughing on the Penguins (Parker Wotherspoon): 2 minutes on the power play +3% DET
P1 3:41 High sticking double minor on the Penguins (Tommy Novak): 4 minutes on the power play +5% DET
P2 9:51 Abuse of officials on the Penguins (Bryan Rust): 2 minutes on the power play +5% DET
P2 8:18 Holding the stick on the Red Wings (Lucas Raymond): 2 minutes on the power play +5% PIT
P3 15:59 High sticking on the Red Wings (Lucas Raymond): 2 minutes on the power play +6% PIT
P3 12:52 Tripping on the Penguins (Blake Lizotte): 2 minutes on the power play +7% DET
P3 3:46 Delaying game puck over glass on the Penguins (Jack St. Ivany): 2 minutes on the power play +6% DET

When it happened

Penguins’ 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 Penguins were ahead in it, below while the Red Wings were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 15:52 Sidney Crosby scored on a slap shot from 52 feetShooting · 4% chance +15% PIT –
2 P1 14:14 Sidney Crosby scored on a wrist shot from 26 feetShooting · 11% chance +12% PIT –
3 P1 2:14 James van Riemsdyk scored on a tip from 9 feetShooting · 11% chance +12% DET –
4 P2 18:59 Andrew Copp scored on a wrist shot from 14 feetShooting · 12% chance +16% DET –
5 P3 12:52 Tripping on the Penguins (Blake Lizotte): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +7% DET –
6 P3 4:09 Blake Lizotte scored on a wrist shot from 37 feetShooting · 4% chance +38% PIT –
7 P3 2:58 Alex DeBrincat scored on a backhand shot from 4 feetShooting · 20% chance +33% DET –
8 OT The Penguins won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +49% PIT –

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

Red Wings 60% · Penguins 40%

Final margin
Penguins by 1
Luck in goals
1.4 for the Penguins
Luck-adjusted margin
Red Wings by 0.4
Replay with same day's form
Red Wings 58% · Penguins 42% 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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