luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · January 4, 2026 · OT

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

Penguins at Blue Jackets, Jan 4, 2026: who deserved to win?

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

The game turned on a luck play (OT): the Penguins won in overtime, worth 51 points of win probability to the Penguins.

Final (OT)

Pittsburgh Penguins 5
Columbus Blue Jackets 4

January 4, 2026 · Nationwide Arena

Luck index +47 Penguins lucky · −47 Blue Jackets

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. Penguins win 5, Blue Jackets win 5.

  1. 1 PIT 5 CBJ 1
  2. 2 PIT 5 CBJ 2
  3. 3 PIT 5 CBJ 3
  4. 4 PIT 3 CBJ 2
  5. 5 PIT 4 CBJ 3
  6. 6 PIT 2 CBJ 3
  7. 7 PIT 6 CBJ 7
  8. 8 PIT 1 CBJ 3
  9. 9 PIT 3 CBJ 6
  10. 10 PIT 0 CBJ 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 3,999.9 replays ended

Penguins win 53% of them, Blue Jackets 47%. The line is what actually happened: Penguins by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Penguins by 3+24.1%
Penguins by 210.1%
Penguins by 119.3%
Blue Jackets by 120.9%
Blue Jackets by 29.1%
Blue Jackets by 3+16.6%

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 Penguins: the final margin was Penguins by 1, without the luck Penguins by 0.6. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Penguins6543.64+0.36
Blue Jackets3642.87+1.13

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 10:46 Tripping on the Blue Jackets (Ivan Provorov): 2 minutes on the power play +3% PIT
P2 6:23 Cross checking on the Blue Jackets (Adam Fantilli): 2 minutes on the power play +1% PIT
P3 17:54 Tripping on the Blue Jackets (Dmitri Voronkov): 2 minutes on the power play +2% PIT

When it happened

Blue Jackets’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 97%. 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 Blue Jackets were ahead in it, below while the Penguins were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 18:10 Ville Koivunen scored on a snap shot from 7 feetShooting · 22% chance +12% PIT –
2 P1 11:39 Dmitri Voronkov scored on a tip from 26 feetShooting · 5% chance +16% CBJ –
3 P1 11:12 Mason Marchment scored on a backhand shot from 10 feetShooting · 11% chance +15% CBJ –
4 P1 1:22 Kirill Marchenko scored on a snap shot from 12 feetShooting · 9% chance +13% CBJ –
5 P2 19:13 Zach Werenski scored on a snap shot from 57 feetShooting · 2% chance +8% CBJ –
6 P3 16:32 Tommy Novak scored on a slap shot from 37 feetShooting · 10% chance +13% PIT –
7 P3 0:14 Rickard Rakell scored on a snap shot from 16 feetShooting · 18% chance +39% PIT –
8 OT The game turned hereThe Penguins won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +51% 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

Penguins 62% · Blue Jackets 38%

Final margin
Penguins by 1
Luck in goals
0.4 for the Penguins
Luck-adjusted margin
Penguins by 0.6
Replay with same day's form
Penguins 53% · Blue Jackets 47% 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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