luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · January 12, 2026

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

Oilers at Blackhawks, Jan 12, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Oilers beat the Blackhawks 4–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Oilers win 6 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 41 points of win probability to the Oilers.

The biggest swing (P2, 19:44 left): Evan Bouchard scored on a snap shot from 12 feet, worth 15 points of win probability to the Oilers.

Final

Edmonton Oilers 4
Chicago Blackhawks 1

January 12, 2026 · United Center

Luck index +43 Oilers lucky · −43 Blackhawks

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. Oilers win 6, Blackhawks win 4.

  1. 1 EDM 6 CHI 1
  2. 2 EDM 9 CHI 5
  3. 3 EDM 5 CHI 2
  4. 4 EDM 6 CHI 4
  5. 5 EDM 3 CHI 2
  6. 6 EDM 3 CHI 2
  7. 7 EDM 2 CHI 3
  8. 8 EDM 3 CHI 4
  9. 9 EDM 4 CHI 6
  10. 10 EDM 4 CHI 7

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

Oilers win 57% of them, Blackhawks 43%. The line is what actually happened: Oilers by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Oilers by 3+29.3%
Oilers by 210.2%
Oilers by 117.7%
Blackhawks by 119.1%
Blackhawks by 28.8%
Blackhawks by 3+14.9%

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 +1.9 goals to the Oilers: the final margin was Oilers by 3, without the luck Oilers by 1.1. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Oilers5333.74−0.74
Blackhawks4613.45−2.45

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
P2 10:05 Slashing on the Oilers (Mattias Ekholm): 2 minutes on the power play +3% CHI
P2 5:07 Too many men on the ice on the Blackhawks (CHI): 2 minutes on the power play +3% EDM
P2 2:09 Hooking on the Blackhawks (Ryan Greene): 2 minutes on the power play +3% EDM
P3 9:28 Tripping on the Oilers (Spencer Stastney): 2 minutes on the power play +2% CHI

When it happened

Blackhawks’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 54%. 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 Oilers were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 5:19 Zach Hyman scored on a tip from 4 feetShooting · 19% chance +15% EDM –
2 P2 19:44 Evan Bouchard scored on a snap shot from 12 feetShooting · 4% chance +15% EDM –
3 P2 9:05 Tyler Bertuzzi’s wrist shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 25% chance +4% EDM –
4 P2 8:26 Ryan Greene missed the net with a snap shot from 16 feetShooting · 22% chance +4% EDM –
5 P3 5:14 Tyler Bertuzzi scored on a wrist shot from 14 feetShooting · 12% chance +10% CHI –
6 P3 3:39 Nick Lardis’s wrist shot from 9 feet was savedShooting · 11% chance +4% EDM –
7 P3 1:13 Nick Lardis missed the net with a slap shot from 28 feetShooting · 9% chance +4% EDM –
8 P3 0:53 Evan Bouchard scored on a wrist shot from 33 feet into the empty netEmpty-net goals · 36% chance +4% EDM –

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

Oilers 73% · Blackhawks 27%

Final margin
Oilers by 3
Luck in goals
1.9 for the Oilers
Luck-adjusted margin
Oilers by 1.1
Replay with same day's form
Oilers 57% · Blackhawks 43% 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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