luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · March 15, 2026

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

Sharks at Senators, Mar 15, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Senators beat the Sharks 7–4, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 6 of 10. The Sharks had the bounces: goaltending alone was worth 30 points of win probability to the Sharks.

The biggest swing (P3, 6:52 left): Drake Batherson scored on a deflected shot from 5 feet, worth 31 points of win probability to the Senators.

Final

San Jose Sharks 4
Ottawa Senators 7

March 15, 2026 · Canadian Tire Centre

Luck index +37 Senators lucky · −37 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. Sharks win 4, Senators win 6.

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

Sharks win 37% of them, Senators 63%. The line is what actually happened: Senators by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Sharks by 3+9.2%
Sharks by 27.7%
Sharks by 119.8%
Senators by 121.3%
Senators by 211.0%
Senators by 3+31.0%

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 +1.0 goals to the Senators: the final margin was Senators by 3, without the luck Senators by 2. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Sharks3142.06+1.94
Senators4763.05+2.95

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 18:18 High sticking on the Senators (Tim Stützle): 2 minutes on the power play +4% SJS
P1 13:43 Interference on the Sharks (John Klingberg): 2 minutes on the power play +4% OTT
P1 0:41 Cross checking on the Sharks (Vincent Desharnais): 2 minutes on the power play +4% OTT
P2 7:57 Hooking on the Sharks (Dmitry Orlov): 2 minutes on the power play +5% OTT
P2 1:02 Roughing on the Senators (Artem Zub): 2 minutes on the power play +5% SJS

When it happened

Senators’ chance of winning

As low as 30% 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 Senators were ahead in it, below while the Sharks were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 15:55 Mario Ferraro scored on a slap shot from 41 feetShooting · 6% chance +15% SJS –
2 P1 5:17 Tyler Toffoli scored on a tip from 10 feetShooting · 9% chance +16% SJS –
3 P2 15:29 Warren Foegele scored on a wrist shot from 22 feetShooting · 4% chance +19% OTT –
4 P2 9:14 Collin Graf scored on a wrist shot from 5 feetShooting · 26% chance +16% SJS –
5 P2 6:20 Fabian Zetterlund scored on a slap shot from 49 feetShooting · 4% chance +22% OTT –
6 P2 5:15 Tyler Kleven scored on a wrist shot from 17 feetShooting · 7% chance +21% OTT –
7 P3 16:32 Michael Misa scored on a snap shot from 32 feetShooting · 6% chance +25% SJS –
8 P3 6:52 Drake Batherson scored on a deflected shot from 5 feetShooting · 11% chance +31% OTT –

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

Sharks 10% · Senators 90%

Final margin
Senators by 3
Luck in goals
1.0 for the Senators
Luck-adjusted margin
Senators by 2.0
Replay with same day's form
Sharks 37% · Senators 63% 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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