2025-26 regular season · February 5, 2026
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Panthers at Lightning, Feb 5, 2026: who deserved to win?
The Lightning beat the Panthers 6–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Lightning win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 23 points of win probability to the Lightning.
The biggest swing (P1, 17:52 left): Brandon Hagel scored on a tip from 21 feet, worth 15 points of win probability to the Lightning.
Final
 Florida Panthers | 1 |
|---|---|
 Tampa Bay Lightning | 6 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +51 Lightning lucky · −51 Panthers
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. Panthers win 5, Lightning win 5.
- 1 FLA 5 TBL 1
- 2 FLA 4 TBL 1
- 3 FLA 3 TBL 1
- 4 FLA 1 TBL 0
- 5 FLA 3 TBL 2
- 6 FLA 2 TBL 3
- 7 FLA 1 TBL 2
- 8 FLA 3 TBL 5
- 9 FLA 2 TBL 5
- 10 FLA 1 TBL 5
Three other ways to ask
Each answers a different question, so none of them replaces the replay above.
Before puck drop
No closing line for this game.
Same teams, fresh game
Needs the closing line, which this game has not got.
Only coin-flips re-rolled
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 replays ended
Panthers win 51% of them, Lightning 49%. The line is what actually happened: Lightning by 5.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Panthers by 3+ | 18.9% |
| Panthers by 2 | 10.9% |
| Panthers by 1 | 21.6% |
| Lightning by 1 | 22.9% |
| Lightning by 2 | 9.8% |
| Lightning by 3+ | 15.8% |
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.
| Shooting | Unblocked attempts | Goals | Expected goals | Above expected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Panthers | 47 | 1 | 2.61 | −1.61 |
 Lightning | 36 | 6 | 2.17 | +3.83 |
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.
| When | Call | Win probability for |
|---|---|---|
| P1 4:46 | Cross checking on the Lightning (Nikita Kucherov): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% FLA |
| P1 4:10 | Tripping on the Lightning (Zemgus Girgensons): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% FLA |
| P1 0:00 | Abuse of officials on the Panthers (Matthew Tkachuk): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% TBL |
| P2 9:12 | Interference on the Panthers (Anton Lundell): 2 minutes on the power play | +1% TBL |
| P2 5:40 | Slashing on the Lightning (Nikita Kucherov): 2 minutes on the power play | +1% FLA |
| P3 15:54 | Interference on the Panthers (Matthew Tkachuk): 4 minutes on the power play | 0% TBL |
| P3 13:27 | Fighting on the Lightning (Curtis Douglas): 5 minutes on the power play | 0% FLA |
| P3 3:55 | Cross checking on the Lightning (Declan Carlile): 2 minutes on the power play | 0% FLA |
When it happened
Lightning’ chance of winning
Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 17:52 | Brandon Hagel scored on a tip from 21 feetShooting · 6% chance | +15% TBL | – |
| 2 | P1 15:31 | A.J. Greer’s snap shot from 13 feet was savedShooting · 12% chance | +2% TBL | – |
| 3 | P1 5:52 | Zemgus Girgensons scored on a backhand shot from 13 feetShooting · 8% chance | +12% TBL | – |
| 4 | P1 4:46 | Cross checking on the Lightning (Nikita Kucherov): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +3% FLA | – |
| 5 | P1 4:10 | Tripping on the Lightning (Zemgus Girgensons): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +3% FLA | – |
| 6 | P1 0:31 | Matthew Tkachuk’s wrist shot from 13 feet was savedShooting · 6% chanceMatthew Tkachuk’s snap shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 10% chance | +2% TBL | – |
| 7 | P1 0:00 | Abuse of officials on the Panthers (Matthew Tkachuk): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +3% TBL | – |
| 8 | P2 18:46 | Jake Guentzel scored on a wrist shot from 6 feetShooting · 21% chance | +7% TBL | – |
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
Panthers 22% · Lightning 78%
- Final margin
- Lightning by 5
- Luck in goals
- 4.1 for the Lightning
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Lightning by 0.9
- Replay with same day's form
- Panthers 51% · Lightning 49% unchanged: why
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.
More from week 18, 2025-26
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