luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · March 12, 2026

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

Penguins at Golden Knights, Mar 12, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Golden Knights beat the Penguins 6–2, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Golden Knights win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 30 points of win probability to the Golden Knights.

The biggest swing (P1, 11:19 left): Colton Sissons scored on a wrist shot from 6 feet, worth 14 points of win probability to the Golden Knights.

Final

Pittsburgh Penguins 2
Vegas Golden Knights 6

March 12, 2026 · T-Mobile Arena

Luck index +47 Golden Knights lucky · −47 Penguins

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. Penguins win 5, Golden Knights win 5.

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

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

Penguins win 47% of them, Golden Knights 53%. The line is what actually happened: Golden Knights by 4.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Penguins by 3+12.8%
Penguins by 29.9%
Penguins by 124.7%
Golden Knights by 126.0%
Golden Knights by 211.1%
Golden Knights by 3+15.5%

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 +1.0 goals to the Golden Knights: the final margin was Golden Knights by 4, without the luck Golden Knights by 3. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Penguins4222.43−0.43
Golden Knights2651.78+3.22

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 3:49 Interference on the Penguins (Connor Clifton): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VGK
P1 0:32 Tripping on the Penguins (Tommy Novak): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VGK
P2 17:45 Interference on the Golden Knights (Rasmus Andersson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% PIT
P2 8:13 Tripping on the Golden Knights (Mitch Marner): 2 minutes on the power play +3% PIT
P3 7:39 Slashing on the Golden Knights (Pavel Dorofeyev): 2 minutes on the power play 0% PIT

When it happened

Golden Knights’ chance of winning

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 Golden Knights were ahead in it, below while the Penguins were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 11:19 Colton Sissons scored on a wrist shot from 6 feetShooting · 16% chance +14% VGK –
2 P2 17:45 Interference on the Golden Knights (Rasmus Andersson): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% PIT –
3 P2 14:58 Pavel Dorofeyev scored on a wrist shot from 10 feetShooting · 7% chance +13% VGK –
4 P2 11:34 Rickard Rakell scored on a tip from 5 feetShooting · 9% chance +13% PIT –
5 P2 10:40 Mitch Marner scored on a wrist shot from 6 feetShooting · 20% chance +12% VGK –
6 P2 3:38 Ben Kindel scored on a tip from 7 feetShooting · 9% chance +13% PIT –
7 P3 15:25 Pavel Dorofeyev scored on a snap shot from 27 feetShooting · 14% chance +12% VGK –
8 P3 13:40 Jack Eichel scored on a wrist shot from 36 feetShooting · 6% chance +4% 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

Penguins 5% · Golden Knights 95%

Final margin
Golden Knights by 4
Luck in goals
1.0 for the Golden Knights
Luck-adjusted margin
Golden Knights by 3.0
Replay with same day's form
Penguins 47% · Golden Knights 53% 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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