luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · March 10, 2026

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

Golden Knights at Stars, Mar 10, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Stars beat the Golden Knights 2–1, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 6 of 10.

The biggest swing (P2, 9:19 left): Oskar Bäck scored on a backhand shot from 9 feet, worth 20 points of win probability to the Stars.

Final

Vegas Golden Knights 1
Dallas Stars 2

March 10, 2026 · American Airlines Center

Luck index +38 Stars lucky · −38 Golden Knights

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, Stars win 6.

  1. 1 VGK 5 DAL 2
  2. 2 VGK 3 DAL 1
  3. 3 VGK 1 DAL 0
  4. 4 VGK 4 DAL 3
  5. 5 VGK 3 DAL 4
  6. 6 VGK 1 DAL 2
  7. 7 VGK 0 DAL 2
  8. 8 VGK 3 DAL 6
  9. 9 VGK 1 DAL 4
  10. 10 VGK 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 4,000.2 replays ended

Golden Knights win 38% of them, Stars 62%. The line is what actually happened: Stars by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Golden Knights by 3+10.0%
Golden Knights by 27.7%
Golden Knights by 120.3%
Stars by 121.5%
Stars by 212.6%
Stars by 3+27.9%

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 +0.5 goals to the Golden Knights: the final margin was Stars by 1, without the luck Stars by 1.6. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Golden Knights3712.16−1.16
Stars2822.80−0.80

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 8:24 Slashing on the Golden Knights (Braeden Bowman): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DAL
P2 12:01 High sticking on the Golden Knights (Rasmus Andersson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DAL
P2 8:56 Interference on the Stars (Lian Bichsel): 2 minutes on the power play +5% VGK
P2 6:40 High sticking on the Golden Knights (Nic Dowd): 2 minutes on the power play +5% DAL
P2 5:21 Tripping on the Stars (Thomas Harley): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VGK
P2 0:44 Slashing on the Golden Knights (Ivan Barbashev): 2 minutes on the power play +5% DAL
P3 18:33 Tripping on the Stars (Justin Hryckowian): 2 minutes on the power play +5% VGK
P3 12:46 Tripping on the Golden Knights (Jack Eichel): 2 minutes on the power play +5% DAL

When it happened

Stars’ chance of winning

As low as 32% 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 Golden Knights were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P2 18:29 Jack Eichel scored on a snap shot from 35 feetShooting · 7% chance +18% VGK –
2 P2 9:19 Oskar Bäck scored on a backhand shot from 9 feetShooting · 10% chance +20% DAL –
3 P2 8:56 Interference on the Stars (Lian Bichsel): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% VGK –
4 P2 6:40 High sticking on the Golden Knights (Nic Dowd): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% DAL –
5 P2 6:16 Jason Robertson’s slap shot from 24 feet was savedShooting · 22% chance +5% VGK –
6 P2 5:44 Jamie Benn scored on a bat shot from 8 feetShooting · 15% chance +19% DAL –
7 P3 12:46 Tripping on the Golden Knights (Jack Eichel): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% DAL –
8 P3 4:45 Ivan Barbashev missed the net with a snap shot from 19 feetShooting · 13% chance +5% 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

Golden Knights 16% · Stars 84%

Final margin
Stars by 1
Luck in goals
0.5 for the Golden Knights
Luck-adjusted margin
Stars by 1.5
Replay with same day's form
Golden Knights 38% · Stars 62% 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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