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.

Penguins at Bruins, Mar 3, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Bruins beat the Penguins 2–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Bruins win 4 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 59 points of win probability to the Bruins.

The biggest swing (P1, 19:18 left): Erik Karlsson scored on a wrist shot from 65 feet, worth 19 points of win probability to the Penguins.

Final

Pittsburgh Penguins 1
Boston Bruins 2

March 3, 2026 · TD Garden

Luck index +58 Bruins lucky · −58 Penguins

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. Penguins win 6, Bruins win 4.

  1. 1 PIT 5 BOS 0
  2. 2 PIT 6 BOS 3
  3. 3 PIT 5 BOS 2
  4. 4 PIT 9 BOS 7
  5. 5 PIT 6 BOS 5
  6. 6 PIT 3 BOS 2
  7. 7 PIT 4 BOS 5
  8. 8 PIT 4 BOS 5
  9. 9 PIT 1 BOS 4
  10. 10 PIT 2 BOS 5

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 3,999.9 replays ended

Penguins win 58% of them, Bruins 42%. The line is what actually happened: Bruins by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Penguins by 3+29.3%
Penguins by 210.7%
Penguins by 117.5%
Bruins by 118.9%
Bruins by 28.3%
Bruins by 3+15.4%

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 +0.9 goals to the Bruins: the final margin was Bruins by 1, without the luck Bruins by 0.1. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Penguins5513.94−2.94
Bruins4622.90−0.90

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 19:18 Delaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Bruins (BOS): 2 minutes on the power play +4% PIT
P1 5:54 Holding on the Penguins (Connor Clifton): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BOS
P1 1:20 Tripping on the Bruins (Jonathan Aspirot): 2 minutes on the power play +4% PIT
P2 9:26 High sticking on the Penguins (Egor Chinakhov): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BOS
P2 8:05 Too many men on the ice on the Bruins (BOS): 2 minutes on the power play +4% PIT
P2 1:35 Cross checking on the Penguins (Anthony Mantha): 2 minutes on the power play +5% BOS
P3 18:45 Tripping on the Bruins (Casey Mittelstadt): 2 minutes on the power play +5% PIT

When it happened

Bruins’ chance of winning

As low as 37% 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 Bruins were ahead in it, below while the Penguins were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 19:18 Erik Karlsson scored on a wrist shot from 65 feetShooting · 1% chanceDelaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Bruins (BOS): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +19% PIT –
2 P1 14:50 Marat Khusnutdinov scored on a wrist shot from 24 feetShooting · 6% chance +15% BOS –
3 P1 14:00 Casey Mittelstadt scored on a wrist shot from 12 feetShooting · 11% chance +14% BOS –
4 P2 11:10 Rickard Rakell’s snap shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 23% chance +5% BOS –
5 P2 6:13 Bryan Rust’s snap shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 32% chance +7% BOS –
6 P3 18:45 Tripping on the Bruins (Casey Mittelstadt): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% PIT –
7 P3 14:07 Ben Kindel’s wrist shot from 6 feet was savedShooting · 21% chance +6% BOS –
8 P3 2:45 Justin Brazeau missed the net with a backhand shot from 7 feetShooting · 13% chance +5% BOS –

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

Penguins 46% · Bruins 54%

Final margin
Bruins by 1
Luck in goals
0.9 for the Bruins
Luck-adjusted margin
Bruins by 0.1
Replay with same day's form
Penguins 58% · Bruins 42% 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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