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.

Stars at Blackhawks, Jan 1, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Blackhawks beat the Stars 4–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Blackhawks win 6 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 14 points of win probability to the Blackhawks.

The biggest swing (P1, 5:18 left): Mikko Rantanen scored on a backhand shot from 10 feet, worth 16 points of win probability to the Stars.

Final

Dallas Stars 3
Chicago Blackhawks 4

January 1, 2026 · United Center

Luck index +42 Blackhawks lucky · −42 Stars

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. Stars win 4, Blackhawks win 6.

  1. 1 DAL 3 CHI 0
  2. 2 DAL 3 CHI 1
  3. 3 DAL 5 CHI 4
  4. 4 DAL 5 CHI 4
  5. 5 DAL 3 CHI 4
  6. 6 DAL 2 CHI 3
  7. 7 DAL 2 CHI 4
  8. 8 DAL 0 CHI 3
  9. 9 DAL 3 CHI 6
  10. 10 DAL 0 CHI 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 4,000.1 replays ended

Stars win 42% of them, Blackhawks 58%. The line is what actually happened: Blackhawks by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Stars by 3+12.0%
Stars by 28.3%
Stars by 121.7%
Blackhawks by 122.5%
Blackhawks by 211.7%
Blackhawks by 3+23.8%

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 +0.4 goals to the Stars: the final margin was Blackhawks by 1, without the luck Blackhawks by 1.4. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Stars3732.93+0.07
Blackhawks3742.75+1.25

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 9:13 Hooking on the Stars (Esa Lindell): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CHI
P1 0:00 Cross checking on the Stars (Nils Lundkvist): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CHI
P2 10:46 Unsportsmanlike conduct on the Stars (Miro Heiskanen): 2 minutes on the power play +3% CHI
P2 2:23 Delaying game puck over glass on the Stars (Justin Hryckowian): 2 minutes on the power play +2% CHI
P3 10:14 Interference on the Blackhawks (Louis Crevier): 2 minutes on the power play 0% DAL

When it happened

Blackhawks’ 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 Blackhawks were ahead in it, below while the Stars were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 9:13 Hooking on the Stars (Esa Lindell): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% CHI –
2 P1 8:20 Tyler Bertuzzi’s deflected shot from 5 feet was savedShooting · 21% chance +4% DAL –
3 P1 8:12 Artyom Levshunov scored on a wrist shot from 33 feetShooting · 8% chance +16% CHI –
4 P1 5:18 Mikko Rantanen scored on a backhand shot from 10 feetShooting · 10% chance +16% DAL –
5 P1 0:00 Cross checking on the Stars (Nils Lundkvist): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% CHI –
6 P2 19:47 Teuvo Teravainen scored on a snap shot from 17 feetShooting · 26% chance +14% CHI –
7 P2 10:46 Ilya Mikheyev scored on a wrist shot from 8 feetShooting · 14% chanceUnsportsmanlike conduct on the Stars (Miro Heiskanen): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +15% CHI –
8 P3 16:02 Ilya Mikheyev scored on a wrist shot from 30 feetShooting · 3% chance +5% CHI –

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

Stars 21% · Blackhawks 79%

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