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.

Lightning at Hurricanes, Feb 26, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Hurricanes beat the Lightning 5–4, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Hurricanes win 4 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 42 points of win probability to the Hurricanes.

The biggest swing (P3, 12:43 left): Sebastian Aho scored on a slap shot from 56 feet, worth 29 points of win probability to the Hurricanes.

Final

Tampa Bay Lightning 4
Carolina Hurricanes 5

February 26, 2026 · Lenovo Center

Luck index +55 Hurricanes lucky · −55 Lightning

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. Lightning win 6, Hurricanes win 4.

  1. 1 TBL 4 CAR 0
  2. 2 TBL 6 CAR 3
  3. 3 TBL 5 CAR 2
  4. 4 TBL 5 CAR 3
  5. 5 TBL 3 CAR 2
  6. 6 TBL 2 CAR 1
  7. 7 TBL 5 CAR 6
  8. 8 TBL 3 CAR 4
  9. 9 TBL 1 CAR 3
  10. 10 TBL 1 CAR 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 4,000.2 replays ended

Lightning win 55% of them, Hurricanes 45%. The line is what actually happened: Hurricanes by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Lightning by 3+23.4%
Lightning by 212.1%
Lightning by 120.0%
Hurricanes by 120.8%
Hurricanes by 29.0%
Hurricanes by 3+14.7%

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 Hurricanes: the final margin was Hurricanes by 1, without the luck even. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Lightning4043.43+0.57
Hurricanes4052.24+2.76

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
P2 6:04 Holding the stick on the Hurricanes (Sebastian Aho): 2 minutes on the power play +4% TBL
P2 4:27 Slashing on the Lightning (Nikita Kucherov): 2 minutes on the power play +5% CAR
P3 17:26 Holding on the Hurricanes (Jackson Blake): 2 minutes on the power play +6% TBL
P3 13:17 Tripping on the Lightning (Gage Goncalves): 2 minutes on the power play +7% CAR

When it happened

Hurricanes’ chance of winning

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 Hurricanes were ahead in it, below while the Lightning were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 18:17 Nikolaj Ehlers scored on a snap shot from 35 feetShooting · 7% chance +14% CAR –
2 P1 17:04 Logan Stankoven scored on a snap shot from 8 feetShooting · 15% chance +11% CAR –
3 P1 13:19 Taylor Hall scored on a wrist shot from 10 feetShooting · 9% chance +8% CAR –
4 P1 2:55 Nikita Kucherov scored on a snap shot from 29 feetShooting · 11% chance +12% TBL –
5 P2 18:02 Dominic James scored on a snap shot from 22 feetShooting · 14% chance +16% TBL –
6 P2 12:39 Seth Jarvis scored on a wrist shot from 18 feetShooting · 14% chance +17% CAR –
7 P2 5:58 Brayden Point scored on a snap shot from 19 feetShooting · 25% chance +17% TBL –
8 P3 12:43 Sebastian Aho scored on a slap shot from 56 feetShooting · 3% chance +29% CAR –

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

Lightning 50% · Hurricanes 50%

Final margin
Hurricanes by 1
Luck in goals
1.0 for the Hurricanes
Luck-adjusted margin
even
Replay with same day's form
Lightning 55% · Hurricanes 45% 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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