luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · March 8, 2026 · OT

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

Blackhawks at Stars, Mar 8, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Stars beat the Blackhawks 4–3, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 7 of 10. The Blackhawks had the bounces: goaltending alone was worth 19 points of win probability to the Blackhawks.

The biggest swing (OT): the Stars won in overtime, worth 49 points of win probability to the Stars.

Final (OT)

Chicago Blackhawks 3
Dallas Stars 4

March 8, 2026 · American Airlines Center

Luck index +31 Stars lucky · −31 Blackhawks

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. Blackhawks win 3, Stars win 7.

  1. 1 CHI 5 DAL 2
  2. 2 CHI 5 DAL 4
  3. 3 CHI 4 DAL 3
  4. 4 CHI 2 DAL 3
  5. 5 CHI 1 DAL 2
  6. 6 CHI 4 DAL 6
  7. 7 CHI 0 DAL 3
  8. 8 CHI 3 DAL 6
  9. 9 CHI 3 DAL 7
  10. 10 CHI 0 DAL 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 4,000 replays ended

Blackhawks win 31% of them, Stars 69%. The line is what actually happened: Stars by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Blackhawks by 3+7.7%
Blackhawks by 25.8%
Blackhawks by 117.2%
Stars by 119.0%
Stars by 212.0%
Stars by 3+38.3%

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 +0.3 goals to the Blackhawks: the final margin was Stars by 1, without the luck Stars by 1.3. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Blackhawks2932.10+0.90
Stars4133.76−0.76

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
P1 5:59 Tripping on the Blackhawks (Nick Lardis): 2 minutes on the power play +3% DAL
P2 11:24 Interference on the Blackhawks (Wyatt Kaiser): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DAL
P3 12:11 Tripping on the Blackhawks (Louis Crevier): 2 minutes on the power play +7% DAL
P3 4:03 Holding on the Stars (Wyatt Johnston): 2 minutes on the power play +6% CHI

When it happened

Stars’ chance of winning

As low as 20% 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 Stars were ahead in it, below while the Blackhawks were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 13:01 Tyler Bertuzzi scored on a tip from 8 feetShooting · 8% chance +15% CHI –
2 P1 11:19 Sam Rinzel scored on a snap shot from 25 feetShooting · 11% chance +13% CHI –
3 P1 3:20 Nathan Bastian scored on a tip from 18 feetShooting · 8% chance +14% DAL –
4 P3 19:18 Mavrik Bourque scored on a backhand shot from 9 feetShooting · 9% chance +24% DAL –
5 P3 10:20 Justin Hryckowian scored on a backhand shot from 8 feetShooting · 16% chance +26% DAL –
6 P3 2:17 Connor Bedard’s snap shot from 23 feet was savedShooting · 23% chance +10% DAL –
7 P3 1:20 Connor Bedard scored on a snap shot from 55 feetShooting · 3% chance +43% CHI –
8 OT The Stars won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +49% DAL –

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

Blackhawks 24% · Stars 76%

Final margin
Stars by 1
Luck in goals
0.3 for the Blackhawks
Luck-adjusted margin
Stars by 1.3
Replay with same day's form
Blackhawks 31% · Stars 69% 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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