luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · March 3, 2026

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

Lightning at Wild, Mar 3, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Wild beat the Lightning 5–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Wild win 6 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 24 points of win probability to the Wild.

The biggest swing (P1, 16:14 left): Brock Faber scored on a snap shot from 34 feet, worth 15 points of win probability to the Wild.

Final

Tampa Bay Lightning 1
Minnesota Wild 5

March 3, 2026 · Grand Casino Arena

Luck index +44 Wild lucky · −44 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 4, Wild win 6.

  1. 1 TBL 3 MIN 0
  2. 2 TBL 5 MIN 3
  3. 3 TBL 4 MIN 3
  4. 4 TBL 2 MIN 1
  5. 5 TBL 1 MIN 2
  6. 6 TBL 1 MIN 2
  7. 7 TBL 1 MIN 3
  8. 8 TBL 0 MIN 2
  9. 9 TBL 2 MIN 5
  10. 10 TBL 0 MIN 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

Lightning win 44% of them, Wild 56%. The line is what actually happened: Wild by 4.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Lightning by 3+12.6%
Lightning by 29.3%
Lightning by 122.2%
Wild by 125.1%
Wild by 211.2%
Wild by 3+19.6%

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 +2.3 goals to the Wild: the final margin was Wild by 4, without the luck Wild by 1.7. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Lightning3712.27−1.27
Wild3442.20+1.80

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 14:50 High sticking on the Lightning (Brandon Hagel): 2 minutes on the power play +3% MIN
P1 4:55 High sticking on the Wild (Jonas Brodin): 2 minutes on the power play +4% TBL
P2 16:50 Too many men on the ice on the Lightning (TBL): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MIN
P2 15:49 Tripping on the Wild (Kirill Kaprizov): 2 minutes on the power play +4% TBL
P2 15:36 High sticking on the Lightning (Anthony Cirelli): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MIN
P2 14:55 High sticking on the Lightning (Brayden Point): 2 minutes on the power play +3% MIN
P2 10:27 Tripping on the Wild (Vinnie Hinostroza): 2 minutes on the power play +3% TBL
P3 18:25 Interference on the Lightning (Darren Raddysh): 2 minutes on the power play +2% MIN
P3 0:59 Holding the stick on the Wild (Zach Bogosian): 2 minutes on the power play 0% TBL

When it happened

Wild’ 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 Wild were ahead in it, below while the Lightning were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 16:14 Brock Faber scored on a snap shot from 34 feetShooting · 7% chance +15% MIN –
2 P1 4:55 High sticking on the Wild (Jonas Brodin): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% TBL –
3 P2 16:50 Too many men on the ice on the Lightning (TBL): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% MIN –
4 P2 15:49 Tripping on the Wild (Kirill Kaprizov): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% TBL –
5 P2 15:36 High sticking on the Lightning (Anthony Cirelli): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% MIN –
6 P2 15:01 Mats Zuccarello scored on a wrist shot from 35 feetShooting · 6% chance +14% MIN –
7 P2 4:53 Nikita Kucherov scored on a wrist shot from 30 feetShooting · 8% chance +14% TBL –
8 P2 2:50 Yakov Trenin scored on a wrist shot from 8 feetShooting · 13% chance +13% MIN –

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 18% · Wild 82%

Final margin
Wild by 4
Luck in goals
2.3 for the Wild
Luck-adjusted margin
Wild by 1.7
Replay with same day's form
Lightning 44% · Wild 56% 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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