luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · January 27, 2026

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

Kings at Red Wings, Jan 27, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Kings beat the Red Wings 3–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Kings win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 41 points of win probability to the Kings.

The biggest swing (P2, 10:00 left): Samuel Helenius scored on a snap shot from 25 feet, worth 19 points of win probability to the Kings.

Final

Los Angeles Kings 3
Detroit Red Wings 1

January 27, 2026 · Little Caesars Arena

Luck index +51 Kings lucky · −51 Red Wings

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. Kings win 5, Red Wings win 5.

  1. 1 LAK 6 DET 2
  2. 2 LAK 5 DET 2
  3. 3 LAK 6 DET 4
  4. 4 LAK 3 DET 2
  5. 5 LAK 4 DET 3
  6. 6 LAK 1 DET 2
  7. 7 LAK 1 DET 2
  8. 8 LAK 0 DET 2
  9. 9 LAK 4 DET 7
  10. 10 LAK 2 DET 6

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

Kings win 49% of them, Red Wings 51%. The line is what actually happened: Kings by 2.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Kings by 3+19.5%
Kings by 29.3%
Kings by 120.4%
Red Wings by 123.2%
Red Wings by 29.7%
Red Wings by 3+18.0%

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 +1.2 goals to the Kings: the final margin was Kings by 2, without the luck Kings by 0.8. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Kings3722.58−0.58
Red Wings5213.51−2.51

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 10:52 Holding on the Red Wings (Albert Johansson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% LAK
P1 8:51 Slashing on the Red Wings (Dylan Larkin): 2 minutes on the power play +4% LAK
P1 6:56 Tripping on the Kings (Quinton Byfield): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DET
P2 1:39 Hooking on the Kings (Andrei Kuzmenko): 2 minutes on the power play +5% DET
P3 14:07 Slashing on the Red Wings (Jacob Bernard-Docker): 2 minutes on the power play +5% LAK
P3 12:31 Holding on the Kings (Drew Doughty): 2 minutes on the power play +2% DET
P3 0:07 Slashing on the Kings (Adrian Kempe): 2 minutes on the power play 0% DET

When it happened

Red Wings’ 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 Red Wings were ahead in it, below while the Kings were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 6:56 Tripping on the Kings (Quinton Byfield): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% DET –
2 P2 10:00 Samuel Helenius scored on a snap shot from 25 feetShooting · 11% chance +19% LAK –
3 P2 1:39 Hooking on the Kings (Andrei Kuzmenko): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% DET –
4 P3 14:44 Moritz Seider’s snap shot from 27 feet was savedShooting · 14% chance +4% LAK –
5 P3 14:07 Slashing on the Red Wings (Jacob Bernard-Docker): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% LAK –
6 P3 13:14 Andrei Kuzmenko scored on a snap shot from 20 feetShooting · 19% chance +12% LAK –
7 P3 2:15 Alex DeBrincat scored on a wrist shot from 13 feetShooting · 9% chance +6% DET –
8 P3 1:20 Patrick Kane’s backhand shot from 5 feet was savedShooting · 15% chance +6% LAK –

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

Kings 71% · Red Wings 29%

Final margin
Kings by 2
Luck in goals
1.2 for the Kings
Luck-adjusted margin
Kings by 0.8
Replay with same day's form
Kings 49% · Red Wings 51% 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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