luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · January 29, 2026 · SO

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

Stars at Golden Knights, Jan 29, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Stars beat the Golden Knights 5–4, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 6 of 10. The Golden Knights had the bounces: shooting alone was worth 34 points of win probability to the Golden Knights.

The game turned on a luck play (SO): the Stars won the shootout, worth 50 points of win probability to the Stars.

Final (SO)

Dallas Stars 5
Vegas Golden Knights 4

January 29, 2026 · T-Mobile Arena

Luck index +37 Stars lucky · −37 Golden Knights

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 6, Golden Knights win 4.

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

Stars win 63% of them, Golden Knights 37%. The line is what actually happened: Stars by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Stars by 3+29.4%
Stars by 212.8%
Stars by 120.6%
Golden Knights by 122.1%
Golden Knights by 26.7%
Golden Knights by 3+8.3%

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 +0.1 goals to the Golden Knights: the final margin was Stars by 1, without the luck Stars by 1.1. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Stars3942.72+1.28
Golden Knights3541.92+2.08

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 16:25 Hooking on the Stars (Jason Robertson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VGK
P2 9:47 Tripping on the Golden Knights (Jeremy Lauzon): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DAL
P3 16:45 High sticking on the Golden Knights (Jack Eichel): 2 minutes on the power play +1% DAL

When it happened

Golden Knights’ 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 Golden Knights were ahead in it, below while the Stars were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 18:23 Matt Duchene scored on a wrist shot from 11 feetShooting · 5% chance +15% DAL –
2 P2 15:53 Keegan Kolesar scored on a wrist shot from 11 feetShooting · 13% chance +17% VGK –
3 P2 11:14 Mavrik Bourque scored on a snap shot from 17 feetShooting · 19% chance +17% DAL –
4 P2 5:44 Mavrik Bourque scored on a snap shot from 27 feetShooting · 8% chance +15% DAL –
5 P2 3:17 Wyatt Johnston scored on a snap shot from 20 feetShooting · 20% chance +6% DAL –
6 P3 6:06 Ivan Barbashev scored on a wrist shot from 33 feetShooting · 7% chance +11% VGK –
7 P3 0:49 Mitch Marner scored on a snap shot from 62 feetShooting · 2% chance +45% VGK –
8 SO The game turned hereThe Stars won the shootoutShootout · shootouts are close to coin flips +49% 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% · Golden Knights 27%

Final margin
Stars by 1
Luck in goals
0.1 for the Golden Knights
Luck-adjusted margin
Stars by 1.1
Replay with same day's form
Stars 63% · Golden Knights 37% 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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