2025-26 regular season · March 4, 2026 · OT
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Golden Knights at Red Wings, Mar 4, 2026: who deserved to win?
The Golden Knights beat the Red Wings 4–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Golden Knights win 4 of 10. Luck ran their way: overtime alone was worth 51 points of win probability to the Golden Knights.
The game turned on a luck play (OT): the Golden Knights won in overtime, worth 51 points of win probability to the Golden Knights.
Final (OT)
 Vegas Golden Knights | 4 |
|---|---|
 Detroit Red Wings | 3 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +57 Golden Knights lucky · −57 Red Wings
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. Golden Knights win 4, Red Wings win 6.
- 1 VGK 5 DET 2
- 2 VGK 5 DET 2
- 3 VGK 2 DET 1
- 4 VGK 3 DET 2
- 5 VGK 5 DET 6
- 6 VGK 1 DET 2
- 7 VGK 0 DET 2
- 8 VGK 3 DET 6
- 9 VGK 2 DET 5
- 10 VGK 3 DET 8
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 4,000.1 replays ended
Golden Knights win 43% of them, Red Wings 57%. The line is what actually happened: Golden Knights by 1.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Golden Knights by 3+ | 15.7% |
| Golden Knights by 2 | 8.4% |
| Golden Knights by 1 | 19.2% |
| Red Wings by 1 | 20.2% |
| Red Wings by 2 | 10.6% |
| Red Wings by 3+ | 26.0% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Golden Knights | 37 | 3 | 2.86 | +0.14 |
 Red Wings | 38 | 3 | 3.08 | −0.08 |
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 1:13 | Tripping on the Golden Knights (Keegan Kolesar): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% DET |
| P2 17:09 | High sticking on the Red Wings (Dylan Larkin): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% VGK |
| P2 10:46 | Tripping on the Golden Knights (Tomas Hertl): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% DET |
| P2 5:29 | Hooking on the Golden Knights (Shea Theodore): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% DET |
| P3 2:23 | Tripping on the Golden Knights (Tomas Hertl): 2 minutes on the power play | +10% DET |
| OT 3:08 | Slashing on the Red Wings (Simon Edvinsson): 2 minutes on the power play | +12% VGK |
When it happened
Red Wings’ chance of winning
As low as 0% and as high as 97%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 18:10 | Reilly Smith scored on a snap shot from 19 feetShooting · 8% chance | +15% VGK | – |
| 2 | P1 14:02 | Emmitt Finnie scored on a snap shot from 37 feetShooting · 6% chance | +16% DET | – |
| 3 | P1 4:45 | Simon Edvinsson scored on a snap shot from 24 feetShooting · 15% chance | +15% DET | – |
| 4 | P1 3:46 | Alex DeBrincat scored on a snap shot from 39 feetShooting · 6% chance | +13% DET | – |
| 5 | P3 3:24 | Mitch Marner scored on a wrist shot from 9 feetShooting · 18% chance | +33% VGK | – |
| 6 | P3 1:52 | Lucas Raymond’s slap shot from 27 feet was savedShooting · 13% chanceAlex DeBrincat’s wrist shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 22% chance | +15% VGK | – |
| 7 | OT | The game turned hereThe Golden Knights won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip | +51% VGK | – |
| 8 | OT 3:08 | Slashing on the Red Wings (Simon Edvinsson): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +12% VGK | – |
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
Golden Knights 46% · Red Wings 54%
- Final margin
- Golden Knights by 1
- Luck in goals
- 1.2 for the Golden Knights
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Red Wings by 0.2
- Replay with same day's form
- Golden Knights 43% · Red Wings 57% 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.
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