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.

Bruins at Penguins, Mar 8, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Penguins beat the Bruins 5–4, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 6 of 10. The Bruins had the bounces: goaltending alone was worth 21 points of win probability to the Bruins.

The game turned on a luck play (P3, 13:25 left): Anthony Mantha scored on a backhand shot from 14 feet, worth 27 points of win probability to the Penguins. The biggest single swing (OT): the Penguins won in overtime.

Final (OT)

Boston Bruins 4
Pittsburgh Penguins 5

March 8, 2026 · PPG Paints Arena

Luck index +35 Penguins lucky · −35 Bruins

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. Bruins win 4, Penguins win 6.

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

Bruins win 35% of them, Penguins 65%. The line is what actually happened: Penguins by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Bruins by 3+9.7%
Bruins by 27.0%
Bruins by 118.6%
Penguins by 119.3%
Penguins by 211.8%
Penguins by 3+33.6%

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 +0.1 goals to the Bruins: the final margin was Penguins by 1, without the luck Penguins by 1.1. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Bruins4142.27+1.73
Penguins5643.64+0.36

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 12:22 Tripping on the Penguins (Egor Chinakhov): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BOS
P2 6:16 Tripping on the Bruins (Jonathan Aspirot): 2 minutes on the power play +1% PIT
P2 5:54 Slashing on the Bruins (Hampus Lindholm): 2 minutes on the power play +1% PIT
P2 0:04 Tripping on the Penguins (Ilya Solovyov): 2 minutes on the power play +3% BOS
P3 6:32 High sticking on the Penguins (Parker Wotherspoon): 2 minutes on the power play +8% BOS

When it happened

Penguins’ chance of winning

As low as 4% 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 Penguins were ahead in it, below while the Bruins were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 10:33 Pavel Zacha scored on a snap shot from 29 feetShooting · 7% chance +16% BOS –
2 P2 11:13 Pavel Zacha scored on a backhand shot from 14 feetShooting · 6% chance +15% BOS –
3 P3 13:58 Connor Dewar scored on a backhand shot from 21 feetShooting · 7% chance +15% PIT –
4 P3 13:25 The game turned hereAnthony Mantha scored on a backhand shot from 14 feetShooting · 10% chance +27% PIT –
5 P3 11:26 Pavel Zacha scored on a wrist shot from 19 feetShooting · 11% chance +28% BOS –
6 P3 8:42 Anthony Mantha scored on a backhand shot from 10 feetShooting · 14% chance +29% PIT –
7 P3 6:32 High sticking on the Penguins (Parker Wotherspoon): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +8% BOS –
8 OT The Penguins won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +49% PIT –

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

Bruins 29% · Penguins 71%

Final margin
Penguins by 1
Luck in goals
0.1 for the Bruins
Luck-adjusted margin
Penguins by 1.1
Replay with same day's form
Bruins 35% · Penguins 65% 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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