luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · January 31, 2026 · OT

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

Hurricanes at Capitals, Jan 31, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Capitals beat the Hurricanes 4–3, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 7 of 10. The Hurricanes had the bounces: shooting alone was worth 27 points of win probability to the Hurricanes.

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

Final (OT)

Carolina Hurricanes 3
Washington Capitals 4

January 31, 2026 · Capital One Arena

Luck index +32 Capitals lucky · −32 Hurricanes

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. Hurricanes win 3, Capitals win 7.

  1. 1 CAR 5 WSH 2
  2. 2 CAR 2 WSH 0
  3. 3 CAR 4 WSH 3
  4. 4 CAR 3 WSH 4
  5. 5 CAR 3 WSH 4
  6. 6 CAR 3 WSH 5
  7. 7 CAR 1 WSH 4
  8. 8 CAR 1 WSH 4
  9. 9 CAR 1 WSH 5
  10. 10 CAR 1 WSH 7

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 3,999.8 replays ended

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

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Hurricanes by 3+9.3%
Hurricanes by 26.3%
Hurricanes by 116.0%
Capitals by 117.3%
Capitals by 210.7%
Capitals by 3+40.4%

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 +0.4 goals to the Hurricanes: the final margin was Capitals by 1, without the luck Capitals by 1.4. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Hurricanes4332.64+0.36
Capitals5934.44−1.44

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 17:39 Hooking on the Hurricanes (Taylor Hall): 2 minutes on the power play +4% WSH
P2 10:11 Interference on the Hurricanes (Taylor Hall): 2 minutes on the power play +3% WSH
P2 9:07 Interference on the Capitals (Ryan Leonard): 2 minutes on the power play +3% CAR
P2 8:39 Interference on the Capitals (Jakob Chychrun): 2 minutes on the power play +3% CAR
P2 1:33 Delaying game puck over glass on the Hurricanes (Taylor Hall): 2 minutes on the power play +5% WSH
P3 18:01 Hooking on the Hurricanes (Sean Walker): 2 minutes on the power play +5% WSH

When it happened

Capitals’ chance of winning

As low as 6% and as high as 100%. 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 Capitals were ahead in it, below while the Hurricanes were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 6:33 Mark Jankowski scored on a snap shot from 12 feetShooting · 19% chance +14% CAR –
2 P1 2:09 Sebastian Aho scored on a snap shot from 21 feetShooting · 17% chance +13% CAR –
3 P2 15:44 Shayne Gostisbehere scored on a snap shot from 51 feetShooting · 2% chance +10% CAR –
4 P2 12:08 Hendrix Lapierre scored on a snap shot from 8 feetShooting · 21% chance +7% WSH –
5 P2 5:02 Dylan Strome scored on a tip from 5 feetShooting · 17% chance +14% WSH –
6 P3 6:42 Jakob Chychrun scored on a snap shot from 36 feetShooting · 9% chance +33% WSH –
7 P3 5:16 Justin Sourdif missed the net with a wrist shot from 4 feetShooting · 15% chance +6% CAR –
8 OT The Capitals won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +49% WSH –

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

Hurricanes 24% · Capitals 76%

Final margin
Capitals by 1
Luck in goals
0.4 for the Hurricanes
Luck-adjusted margin
Capitals by 1.4
Replay with same day's form
Hurricanes 32% · Capitals 68% 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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