luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · January 27, 2026 · OT

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

Predators at Bruins, Jan 27, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Bruins beat the Predators 3–2, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Bruins win 4 of 10. Luck ran their way: overtime alone was worth 49 points of win probability to the Bruins.

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

Final (OT)

Nashville Predators 2
Boston Bruins 3

January 27, 2026 · TD Garden

Luck index +58 Bruins lucky · −58 Predators

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. Predators win 6, Bruins win 4.

  1. 1 NSH 6 BOS 1
  2. 2 NSH 3 BOS 0
  3. 3 NSH 6 BOS 3
  4. 4 NSH 6 BOS 4
  5. 5 NSH 2 BOS 1
  6. 6 NSH 4 BOS 3
  7. 7 NSH 3 BOS 4
  8. 8 NSH 1 BOS 2
  9. 9 NSH 0 BOS 2
  10. 10 NSH 0 BOS 3

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

Predators win 58% of them, Bruins 42%. The line is what actually happened: Bruins by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Predators by 3+27.5%
Predators by 211.1%
Predators by 119.3%
Bruins by 120.4%
Bruins by 28.6%
Bruins by 3+13.1%

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 +1.6 goals to the Bruins: the final margin was Bruins by 1, without the luck Predators by 0.6. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Predators5323.26−1.26
Bruins3722.39−0.39

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 12:46 Slashing on the Predators (Brady Skjei): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BOS
P1 6:33 Interference on the Bruins (Hampus Lindholm): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NSH
P1 5:20 High sticking on the Predators (Filip Forsberg): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BOS
P2 14:15 Tripping on the Bruins (Tanner Jeannot): 2 minutes on the power play +3% NSH
P2 12:48 Slashing on the Predators (Steven Stamkos): 2 minutes on the power play +3% BOS
P2 7:24 Tripping on the Bruins (Hampus Lindholm): 2 minutes on the power play +3% NSH
P2 1:04 Slashing on the Bruins (David Pastrnak): 2 minutes on the power play +2% NSH

When it happened

Bruins’ 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 Bruins were ahead in it, below while the Predators were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 6:44 Hampus Lindholm scored on a snap shot from 58 feetShooting · 1% chance +17% BOS –
2 P2 17:12 Morgan Geekie scored on a snap shot from 19 feetShooting · 17% chance +12% BOS –
3 P2 4:55 Michael Bunting’s bat shot from 6 feet was savedShooting · 16% chanceMichael Bunting’s deflected shot from 6 feet was savedShooting · 12% chance +4% BOS –
4 P2 0:35 Roman Josi scored on a slap shot from 38 feetShooting · 8% chance +14% NSH –
5 P3 13:16 Ryan O'Reilly’s snap shot from 5 feet was savedShooting · 27% chance +8% BOS –
6 P3 6:43 Nick Blankenburg scored on a snap shot from 47 feetShooting · 4% chance +34% NSH –
7 P3 1:16 Michael Bunting missed the net with a tip from 7 feetShooting · 10% chance +4% BOS –
8 OT The Bruins won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +49% BOS –

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

Predators 66% · Bruins 34%

Final margin
Bruins by 1
Luck in goals
1.6 for the Bruins
Luck-adjusted margin
Predators by 0.6
Replay with same day's form
Predators 58% · Bruins 42% 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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