luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · March 6, 2026 · OT

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

Blues at Sharks, Mar 6, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Blues beat the Sharks 3–2, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Blues win 4 of 10. Luck ran their way: overtime alone was worth 51 points of win probability to the Blues.

The game turned on a luck play (OT): the Blues won in overtime, worth 51 points of win probability to the Blues.

Final (OT)

St. Louis Blues 3
San Jose Sharks 2

March 6, 2026 · SAP Center at San Jose

Luck index +58 Blues lucky · −58 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. Blues win 4, Sharks win 6.

  1. 1 STL 3 SJS 0
  2. 2 STL 3 SJS 1
  3. 3 STL 2 SJS 1
  4. 4 STL 3 SJS 2
  5. 5 STL 2 SJS 3
  6. 6 STL 3 SJS 4
  7. 7 STL 2 SJS 4
  8. 8 STL 3 SJS 5
  9. 9 STL 0 SJS 3
  10. 10 STL 2 SJS 6

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 4,000.1 replays ended

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

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Blues by 3+11.5%
Blues by 28.9%
Blues by 121.8%
Sharks by 123.3%
Sharks by 211.5%
Sharks by 3+23.0%

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.

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 +1.5 goals to the Blues: the final margin was Blues by 1, without the luck Sharks by 0.5. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Blues2022.000.00
Sharks4022.62−0.62

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 19:31 Roughing on the Sharks (Mario Ferraro): 2 minutes on the power play +4% STL
P1 15:43 High sticking on the Blues (Matthew Kessel): 2 minutes on the power play +4% SJS
P2 8:41 Roughing on the Sharks (Zack Ostapchuk): 2 minutes on the power play +4% STL
P2 7:33 Cross checking on the Blues (Jonatan Berggren): 2 minutes on the power play +5% SJS

When it happened

Sharks’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 54%. 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 Blues were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 13:05 Jimmy Snuggerud scored on a wrist shot from 32 feetShooting · 5% chance +16% STL –
2 P2 8:41 Roughing on the Sharks (Zack Ostapchuk): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% STL –
3 P2 7:33 Cross checking on the Blues (Jonatan Berggren): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% SJS –
4 P2 5:29 Macklin Celebrini scored on a wrist shot from 33 feetShooting · 4% chance +22% SJS –
5 P2 2:14 Robert Thomas scored on a snap shot from 22 feetShooting · 15% chance +21% STL –
6 P3 6:56 Philipp Kurashev’s wrist shot from 13 feet was savedShooting · 14% chance +5% STL –
7 P3 6:34 Kiefer Sherwood scored on a slap shot from 25 feetShooting · 10% chance +33% SJS –
8 OT The game turned hereThe Blues won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +51% STL –

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

Blues 39% · Sharks 61%

Final margin
Blues by 1
Luck in goals
1.5 for the Blues
Luck-adjusted margin
Sharks by 0.5
Replay with same day's form
Blues 42% · Sharks 58% 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.

All week 22 2025-26 games · Blues · Sharks

More from week 22, 2025-26

Every game of week 22, 2025-26