luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · February 4, 2026 · SO

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

Bruins at Panthers, Feb 4, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Panthers beat the Bruins 5–4, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Panthers win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: shootout alone was worth 51 points of win probability to the Panthers.

The biggest swing (SO): the Panthers won the shootout, worth 51 points of win probability to the Panthers.

Final (SO)

Boston Bruins 4
Florida Panthers 5

February 4, 2026 · Amerant Bank Arena

Luck index +47 Panthers lucky · −47 Bruins

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. Bruins win 5, Panthers win 5.

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

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

Bruins win 47% of them, Panthers 53%. The line is what actually happened: Panthers by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Bruins by 3+20.7%
Bruins by 29.8%
Bruins by 116.6%
Panthers by 118.8%
Panthers by 210.1%
Panthers by 3+23.8%

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 +1.0 goals to the Panthers: the final margin was Panthers by 1, without the luck even. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Bruins4243.63+0.37
Panthers4143.68+0.32

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 9:27 Unsportsmanlike conduct bench on the Bruins (BOS): 2 minutes on the power play +4% FLA
P1 4:54 Interference on the Panthers (Aaron Ekblad): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BOS
P1 0:00 Slashing on the Bruins (Nikita Zadorov): 2 minutes on the power play +4% FLA
P2 17:38 Hooking on the Bruins (Viktor Arvidsson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% FLA
P2 7:35 Interference goalkeeper on the Panthers (Eetu Luostarinen): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BOS
P2 4:54 Cross checking on the Panthers (Niko Mikkola): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BOS
P2 3:01 Slashing on the Panthers (Eetu Luostarinen): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BOS
P3 15:10 Tripping on the Panthers (Gustav Forsling): 2 minutes on the power play +2% BOS
P3 9:39 Slashing on the Panthers (Carter Verhaeghe): 2 minutes on the power play +5% BOS
P3 4:17 High sticking on the Panthers (Eetu Luostarinen): 2 minutes on the power play +9% BOS

When it happened

Panthers’ chance of winning

As low as 34% 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 Panthers were ahead in it, below while the Bruins were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 15:38 Eetu Luostarinen scored on a wrist shot from 22 feetShooting · 10% chance +14% FLA –
2 P1 12:42 Michael Eyssimont scored on a wrist shot from 16 feetShooting · 12% chance +14% BOS –
3 P1 7:17 Michael Eyssimont scored on a wrist shot from 4 feetShooting · 14% chance +15% BOS –
4 P2 19:30 Uvis Balinskis scored on a snap shot from 33 feetShooting · 12% chance +17% FLA –
5 P2 17:13 Matthew Tkachuk scored on a backhand shot from 6 feetShooting · 6% chance +18% FLA –
6 P2 1:27 Anton Lundell scored on a tip from 11 feetShooting · 9% chance +13% FLA –
7 P3 9:30 Casey Mittelstadt scored on a wrist shot from 13 feetShooting · 17% chance +27% BOS –
8 SO The Panthers won the shootoutShootout · shootouts are close to coin flips +51% FLA –

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

Bruins 49% · Panthers 51%

Final margin
Panthers by 1
Luck in goals
1.0 for the Panthers
Luck-adjusted margin
even
Replay with same day's form
Bruins 47% · Panthers 53% 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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