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.

Stars at Blues, Jan 27, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Stars beat the Blues 4–3, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 7 of 10. The Blues had the bounces: shooting alone was worth 21 points of win probability to the Blues.

The biggest swing (P3, 1:07 left): Thomas Harley scored on a wrist shot from 58 feet, worth 44 points of win probability to the Stars.

Final

Dallas Stars 4
St. Louis Blues 3

January 27, 2026 · Enterprise Center

Luck index +32 Stars lucky · −32 Blues

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. Stars win 7, Blues win 3.

  1. 1 DAL 6 STL 0
  2. 2 DAL 5 STL 1
  3. 3 DAL 5 STL 2
  4. 4 DAL 3 STL 0
  5. 5 DAL 3 STL 1
  6. 6 DAL 2 STL 1
  7. 7 DAL 5 STL 4
  8. 8 DAL 1 STL 2
  9. 9 DAL 2 STL 3
  10. 10 DAL 3 STL 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 4,000.1 replays ended

Stars win 68% of them, Blues 32%. The line is what actually happened: Stars by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Stars by 3+35.4%
Stars by 213.8%
Stars by 119.2%
Blues by 119.4%
Blues by 25.6%
Blues by 3+6.7%

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 +0.3 goals to the Blues: the final margin was Stars by 1, without the luck Stars by 1.3. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Stars4143.13+0.87
Blues3531.78+1.22

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 14:12 Cross checking on the Stars (Matt Duchene): 2 minutes on the power play +4% STL
P1 5:54 Tripping on the Blues (Tyler Tucker): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DAL
P2 17:49 Slashing on the Blues (Robby Fabbri): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DAL
P2 8:35 Too many men on the ice on the Stars (DAL): 2 minutes on the power play +3% STL
P2 2:02 Slashing on the Blues (Dalibor Dvorsky): 2 minutes on the power play +3% DAL
P3 16:45 Delaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Stars (DAL): 2 minutes on the power play +3% STL

When it happened

Blues’ 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 Blues were ahead in it, below while the Stars were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P2 17:49 Slashing on the Blues (Robby Fabbri): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% DAL –
2 P2 16:40 Matt Duchene scored on a tip from 7 feetShooting · 11% chance +18% DAL –
3 P2 16:00 Matt Duchene scored on a backhand shot from 15 feetShooting · 3% chance +16% DAL –
4 P2 1:54 Roope Hintz scored on a slap shot from 27 feetShooting · 16% chance +6% DAL –
5 P3 16:45 Robby Fabbri scored on a wrist shot from 18 feetShooting · 14% chanceDelaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Stars (DAL): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +8% STL –
6 P3 13:38 Brayden Schenn scored on a wrist shot from 23 feetShooting · 5% chance +15% STL –
7 P3 4:10 Brayden Schenn scored on a wrist shot from 28 feetShooting · 6% chance +38% STL –
8 P3 1:07 Thomas Harley scored on a wrist shot from 58 feetShooting · 1% chance +44% DAL –

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

Stars 73% · Blues 27%

Final margin
Stars by 1
Luck in goals
0.3 for the Blues
Luck-adjusted margin
Stars by 1.3
Replay with same day's form
Stars 68% · Blues 32% 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.

All week 17 2025-26 games · Stars · Blues

More from week 17, 2025-26

Every game of week 17, 2025-26