luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · January 24, 2026

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

Lightning at Blue Jackets, Jan 24, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Blue Jackets beat the Lightning 8–5, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Blue Jackets win 6 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 52 points of win probability to the Blue Jackets.

The biggest swing (P2, 10:55 left): Mason Marchment scored on a wrist shot from 29 feet, worth 20 points of win probability to the Blue Jackets.

Final

Tampa Bay Lightning 5
Columbus Blue Jackets 8

January 24, 2026 · Nationwide Arena

Luck index +40 Blue Jackets lucky · −40 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 4, Blue Jackets win 6.

  1. 1 TBL 3 CBJ 0
  2. 2 TBL 2 CBJ 1
  3. 3 TBL 3 CBJ 2
  4. 4 TBL 3 CBJ 2
  5. 5 TBL 1 CBJ 2
  6. 6 TBL 3 CBJ 4
  7. 7 TBL 2 CBJ 4
  8. 8 TBL 2 CBJ 4
  9. 9 TBL 1 CBJ 4
  10. 10 TBL 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 4,000.2 replays ended

Lightning win 40% of them, Blue Jackets 60%. The line is what actually happened: Blue Jackets by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Lightning by 3+8.5%
Lightning by 28.0%
Lightning by 123.8%
Blue Jackets by 126.4%
Blue Jackets by 212.5%
Blue Jackets by 3+20.7%

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 +0.8 goals to the Blue Jackets: the final margin was Blue Jackets by 3, without the luck Blue Jackets by 2.2. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Lightning4752.06+2.94
Blue Jackets3962.19+3.81

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 10:32 Tripping on the Blue Jackets (Ivan Provorov): 2 minutes on the power play +3% TBL
P1 6:47 Interference on the Blue Jackets (Dmitri Voronkov): 2 minutes on the power play +4% TBL
P2 4:00 Tripping on the Lightning (Declan Carlile): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CBJ
P2 1:13 Delaying game puck over glass on the Lightning (Charle-Edouard D'Astous): 2 minutes on the power play +5% CBJ

When it happened

Blue Jackets’ 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 Blue Jackets were ahead in it, below while the Lightning were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 14:13 Cole Sillinger scored on a wrist shot from 36 feetShooting · 4% chance +15% CBJ –
2 P1 12:12 Jake Guentzel scored on a wrist shot from 81 feetShooting · 1% chance +16% TBL –
3 P1 11:23 Mason Marchment scored on a wrist shot from 39 feetShooting · 4% chance +16% CBJ –
4 P1 9:59 Darren Raddysh scored on a slap shot from 41 feetShooting · 7% chance +16% TBL –
5 P1 1:27 Adam Fantilli scored on a wrist shot from 14 feetShooting · 9% chance +17% CBJ –
6 P2 16:31 Nikita Kucherov scored on a backhand shot from 12 feetShooting · 8% chance +13% TBL –
7 P2 15:02 Anthony Cirelli scored on a snap shot from 14 feetShooting · 10% chance +18% TBL –
8 P2 10:55 Mason Marchment scored on a wrist shot from 29 feetShooting · 6% chance +20% CBJ –

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 10% · Blue Jackets 90%

Final margin
Blue Jackets by 3
Luck in goals
0.8 for the Blue Jackets
Luck-adjusted margin
Blue Jackets by 2.2
Replay with same day's form
Lightning 40% · Blue Jackets 60% 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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