luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · February 26, 2026

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

Flames at Sharks, Feb 26, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Flames beat the Sharks 4–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Flames win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 27 points of win probability to the Flames.

The game turned on a luck play (P2, 4:58 left): Nazem Kadri scored on a wrist shot from 28 feet, worth 21 points of win probability to the Flames. The biggest single swing (P3, 14:38 left): Connor Zary scored on a wrist shot from 34 feet.

Final

Calgary Flames 4
San Jose Sharks 1

February 26, 2026 · SAP Center at San Jose

Luck index +54 Flames lucky · −54 Sharks

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. Flames win 5, Sharks win 5.

  1. 1 CGY 7 SJS 4
  2. 2 CGY 4 SJS 2
  3. 3 CGY 3 SJS 2
  4. 4 CGY 2 SJS 1
  5. 5 CGY 3 SJS 2
  6. 6 CGY 2 SJS 3
  7. 7 CGY 2 SJS 3
  8. 8 CGY 4 SJS 6
  9. 9 CGY 2 SJS 5
  10. 10 CGY 1 SJS 4

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 replays ended

Flames win 46% of them, Sharks 54%. The line is what actually happened: Flames by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Flames by 3+14.5%
Flames by 29.8%
Flames by 122.2%
Sharks by 121.9%
Sharks by 211.4%
Sharks by 3+20.2%

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 +1.7 goals to the Flames: the final margin was Flames by 3, without the luck Flames by 1.3. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Flames3632.37+0.63
Sharks4513.02−2.02

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 11:50 Holding on the Flames (Blake Coleman): 2 minutes on the power play +4% SJS
P1 9:41 Holding on the Sharks (Sam Dickinson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CGY
P2 15:22 High sticking on the Sharks (Mario Ferraro): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CGY
P2 12:29 Hooking on the Sharks (Kiefer Sherwood): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CGY
P2 11:05 Interference on the Flames (Morgan Frost): 2 minutes on the power play +4% SJS
P2 2:37 Too many men on the ice on the Flames (CGY): 2 minutes on the power play +6% SJS

When it happened

Sharks’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 75%. 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 Sharks were ahead in it, below while the Flames were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P2 18:43 Tyler Toffoli scored on a tip from 23 feetShooting · 7% chance +17% SJS –
2 P2 11:05 Interference on the Flames (Morgan Frost): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% SJS –
3 P2 4:58 The game turned hereNazem Kadri scored on a wrist shot from 28 feetShooting · 8% chance +21% CGY –
4 P2 2:37 Too many men on the ice on the Flames (CGY): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +6% SJS –
5 P2 1:00 Michael Misa missed the net with a snap shot from 23 feetShooting · 19% chance +5% CGY –
6 P3 18:35 Mikael Backlund’s wrist shot from 5 feet was savedShooting · 23% chance +6% SJS –
7 P3 14:38 Connor Zary scored on a wrist shot from 34 feetShooting · 6% chance +27% CGY –
8 P3 8:04 Nazem Kadri scored on a wrist shot from 8 feetShooting · 12% chance +12% CGY –

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

Flames 76% · Sharks 24%

Final margin
Flames by 3
Luck in goals
1.7 for the Flames
Luck-adjusted margin
Flames by 1.3
Replay with same day's form
Flames 46% · Sharks 54% 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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