luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · January 16, 2026 · SO

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

Lightning at Blues, Jan 16, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Blues beat the Lightning 3–2, but the replays lean toward the Lightning: they take 7 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: shootout alone was worth 51 points of win probability to the Blues.

The biggest swing (SO): the Blues won the shootout, worth 51 points of win probability to the Blues.

Final (SO)

Tampa Bay Lightning 2
St. Louis Blues 3

January 16, 2026 · Enterprise Center

Luck index +71 Blues very lucky · −71 Lightning

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. Lightning win 7, Blues win 3.

  1. 1 TBL 5 STL 0
  2. 2 TBL 4 STL 0
  3. 3 TBL 4 STL 1
  4. 4 TBL 3 STL 0
  5. 5 TBL 3 STL 1
  6. 6 TBL 2 STL 1
  7. 7 TBL 3 STL 2
  8. 8 TBL 2 STL 3
  9. 9 TBL 7 STL 8
  10. 10 TBL 3 STL 5

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

Lightning win 71% of them, Blues 29%. The line is what actually happened: Blues by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Lightning by 3+39.1%
Lightning by 212.1%
Lightning by 119.7%
Blues by 118.2%
Blues by 25.4%
Blues by 3+5.5%

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 +2.6 goals to the Blues: the final margin was Blues by 1, without the luck Lightning by 1.6. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Lightning6123.67−1.67
Blues2821.53+0.47

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 1:20 Hooking on the Lightning (Gage Goncalves): 2 minutes on the power play +3% STL
P2 11:57 Tripping on the Blues (Alexey Toropchenko): 2 minutes on the power play +3% TBL
P2 10:09 Tripping on the Blues (Nathan Walker): 2 minutes on the power play +3% TBL
P2 6:55 Hooking on the Lightning (Jake Guentzel): 2 minutes on the power play +5% STL
P2 0:30 High sticking on the Blues (Brayden Schenn): 2 minutes on the power play +6% TBL

When it happened

Blues’ 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 Blues were ahead in it, below while the Lightning were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 2:57 Jake Neighbours scored on a wrist shot from 10 feetShooting · 12% chance +16% STL –
2 P1 2:27 Nick Bjugstad scored on a wrist shot from 32 feetShooting · 6% chance +13% STL –
3 P2 10:01 Nikita Kucherov scored on a slap shot from 31 feetShooting · 8% chance +13% TBL –
4 P2 8:59 Oliver Bjorkstrand scored on a wrist shot from 23 feetShooting · 14% chance +18% TBL –
5 P2 0:30 High sticking on the Blues (Brayden Schenn): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +6% TBL –
6 P3 11:33 Nathan Walker missed the net with a bat shot from 5 feetShooting · 19% chance +6% TBL –
7 P3 11:32 Nathan Walker’s bat shot from 5 feet was savedShooting · 18% chance +6% TBL –
8 SO The Blues won the shootoutShootout · shootouts are close to coin flips +51% STL –

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

Lightning 84% · Blues 16%

Final margin
Blues by 1
Luck in goals
2.6 for the Blues
Luck-adjusted margin
Lightning by 1.6
Replay with same day's form
Lightning 71% · Blues 29% 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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