luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · February 2, 2026

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

Senators at Penguins, Feb 2, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Senators beat the Penguins 3–2, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 7 of 10.

The game turned on a luck play (P3, 13:14 left): Tim Stützle scored on a backhand shot from 5 feet, worth 26 points of win probability to the Senators. The biggest single swing (P3, 5:08 left): Claude Giroux scored on a deflected shot from 5 feet.

Final

Ottawa Senators 3
Pittsburgh Penguins 2

February 2, 2026 · PPG Paints Arena

Luck index +33 Senators lucky · −33 Penguins

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. Senators win 7, Penguins win 3.

  1. 1 OTT 7 PIT 1
  2. 2 OTT 7 PIT 3
  3. 3 OTT 6 PIT 3
  4. 4 OTT 8 PIT 5
  5. 5 OTT 5 PIT 3
  6. 6 OTT 3 PIT 1
  7. 7 OTT 1 PIT 0
  8. 8 OTT 3 PIT 4
  9. 9 OTT 2 PIT 3
  10. 10 OTT 2 PIT 5

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

Senators win 67% of them, Penguins 33%. The line is what actually happened: Senators by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Senators by 3+39.5%
Senators by 210.9%
Senators by 116.5%
Penguins by 117.1%
Penguins by 26.7%
Penguins by 3+9.2%

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 +0.8 goals to the Penguins: the final margin was Senators by 1, without the luck Senators by 1.8. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Senators4834.18−1.18
Penguins2622.64−0.64

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 9:13 Interference goalkeeper on the Penguins (Rickard Rakell): 2 minutes on the power play +4% OTT
P1 4:16 High sticking on the Penguins (Ilya Solovyov): 2 minutes on the power play +4% OTT
P2 16:35 Cross checking on the Penguins (Parker Wotherspoon): 2 minutes on the power play +5% OTT
P2 0:29 Cross checking on the Penguins (Connor Clifton): 2 minutes on the power play +6% OTT
P3 9:09 Cross checking on the Senators (Nick Cousins): 2 minutes on the power play +8% PIT
P3 5:08 Delaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Penguins (PIT): 2 minutes on the power play +6% OTT

When it happened

Penguins’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 72%. 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 Penguins were ahead in it, below while the Senators were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 12:03 Egor Chinakhov scored on a wrist shot from 18 feetShooting · 16% chance +14% PIT –
2 P2 18:25 Michael Amadio scored on a wrist shot from 18 feetShooting · 15% chance +16% OTT –
3 P2 0:29 Cross checking on the Penguins (Connor Clifton): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +6% OTT –
4 P3 13:14 The game turned hereTim Stützle scored on a backhand shot from 5 feetShooting · 12% chance +26% OTT –
5 P3 11:12 Tommy Novak scored on a wrist shot from 2 feetShooting · 62% chance +12% PIT –
6 P3 9:09 Cross checking on the Senators (Nick Cousins): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +8% PIT –
7 P3 5:11 Claude Giroux’s wrist shot from 2 feet was savedShooting · 41% chance +16% PIT –
8 P3 5:08 Claude Giroux scored on a deflected shot from 5 feetShooting · 18% chanceDelaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Penguins (PIT): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +37% OTT –

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

Senators 81% · Penguins 19%

Final margin
Senators by 1
Luck in goals
0.8 for the Penguins
Luck-adjusted margin
Senators by 1.8
Replay with same day's form
Senators 67% · Penguins 33% 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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