luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · January 10, 2026 · OT

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

Stars at Sharks, Jan 10, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Sharks beat the Stars 5–4, 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: overtime alone was worth 49 points of win probability to the Sharks.

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

Final (OT)

Dallas Stars 4
San Jose Sharks 5

January 10, 2026 · SAP Center at San Jose

Luck index +47 Sharks lucky · −47 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 5, Sharks win 5.

  1. 1 DAL 7 SJS 3
  2. 2 DAL 6 SJS 3
  3. 3 DAL 3 SJS 1
  4. 4 DAL 1 SJS 0
  5. 5 DAL 5 SJS 4
  6. 6 DAL 5 SJS 6
  7. 7 DAL 2 SJS 3
  8. 8 DAL 2 SJS 4
  9. 9 DAL 1 SJS 4
  10. 10 DAL 0 SJS 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 46% of them, Sharks 54%. The line is what actually happened: Sharks by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Stars by 3+17.4%
Stars by 29.4%
Stars by 119.7%
Sharks by 121.8%
Sharks by 210.3%
Sharks by 3+21.4%

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 +0.9 goals to the Sharks: the final margin was Sharks by 1, without the luck Sharks by 0.1. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Stars3142.95+1.05
Sharks4143.03+0.97

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 11:38 Interference on the Stars (Colin Blackwell): 2 minutes on the power play +4% SJS
P2 18:19 High sticking on the Sharks (Dmitry Orlov): 2 minutes on the power play +3% DAL
P2 16:01 Tripping on the Stars (Esa Lindell): 2 minutes on the power play +3% SJS
P2 15:06 Interference on the Stars (Adam Erne): 2 minutes on the power play +4% SJS
P2 7:08 Tripping on the Stars (Colin Blackwell): 2 minutes on the power play +5% SJS
P2 0:00 Tripping on the Sharks (Timothy Liljegren): 2 minutes on the power play +5% DAL
P3 11:17 Hooking on the Stars (Ilya Lyubushkin): 2 minutes on the power play +2% SJS
OT 4:03 Holding on the Stars (Mikko Rantanen): 2 minutes on the power play +12% SJS

When it happened

Sharks’ chance of winning

As low as 5% 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 Stars were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 12:27 Justin Hryckowian scored on a wrist shot from 25 feetShooting · 10% chance +15% DAL –
2 P1 0:57 Jason Robertson scored on a wrist shot from 11 feetShooting · 9% chance +14% DAL –
3 P2 15:16 Alexander Wennberg scored on a wrist shot from 15 feetShooting · 12% chance +14% SJS –
4 P2 5:11 Jeff Skinner scored on a wrist shot from 16 feetShooting · 18% chance +19% SJS –
5 P2 0:59 Kyle Capobianco scored on a wrist shot from 31 feetShooting · 5% chance +24% DAL –
6 P3 10:32 Tyler Toffoli scored on a backhand shot from 50 feetShooting · 1% chance +14% SJS –
7 P3 4:59 Adam Gaudette scored on a tip from 9 feetShooting · 10% chance +35% SJS –
8 OT The Sharks won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +49% 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

Stars 47% · Sharks 53%

Final margin
Sharks by 1
Luck in goals
0.9 for the Sharks
Luck-adjusted margin
Sharks by 0.1
Replay with same day's form
Stars 46% · Sharks 54% 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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