luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · March 17, 2026

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

Sharks at Oilers, Mar 17, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Oilers beat the Sharks 5–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Oilers win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 27 points of win probability to the Oilers.

The biggest swing (P3, 15:11 left): Max Jones scored on a wrist shot from 11 feet, worth 24 points of win probability to the Oilers.

Final

San Jose Sharks 3
Edmonton Oilers 5

March 17, 2026 · Rogers Place

Luck index +47 Oilers lucky · −47 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 5, Oilers win 5.

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

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 4,000.1 replays ended

Sharks win 47% of them, Oilers 53%. The line is what actually happened: Oilers by 2.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Sharks by 3+19.5%
Sharks by 29.6%
Sharks by 118.3%
Oilers by 119.8%
Oilers by 210.3%
Oilers by 3+22.6%

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 +1.6 goals to the Oilers: the final margin was Oilers by 2, without the luck Oilers by 0.4. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Sharks4933.39−0.39
Oilers4353.27+1.73

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 18:09 Holding on the Sharks (John Klingberg): 2 minutes on the power play +4% EDM
P1 16:29 High sticking on the Oilers (Zach Hyman): 2 minutes on the power play +4% SJS
P1 10:50 Tripping on the Sharks (Vincent Desharnais): 2 minutes on the power play +4% EDM
P2 19:48 A Sharks goal came off the board on review (puck over glass) +11% EDM
P3 19:29 Tripping on the Sharks (Macklin Celebrini): 2 minutes on the power play +6% EDM
P3 1:49 Tripping on the Sharks (Kiefer Sherwood): 2 minutes on the power play +1% EDM

When it happened

Oilers’ chance of winning

As low as 36% 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 Oilers were ahead in it, below while the Sharks were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 12:36 Dmitry Orlov scored on a wrist shot from 9 feetShooting · 15% chance +14% SJS –
2 P1 10:00 Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scored on a snap shot from 22 feetShooting · 12% chance +15% EDM –
3 P1 8:45 Connor Murphy scored on a wrist shot from 66 feetShooting · 1% chance +17% EDM –
4 P1 5:42 Vasily Podkolzin scored on a snap shot from 40 feetShooting · 5% chance +13% EDM –
5 P2 11:43 Pavol Regenda scored on a tip from 27 feetShooting · 4% chance +14% SJS –
6 P2 5:24 Kiefer Sherwood scored on a wrist shot from 19 feetShooting · 16% chance +19% SJS –
7 P3 15:11 Max Jones scored on a wrist shot from 11 feetShooting · 13% chance +24% EDM –
8 P3 11:48 Zach Hyman scored on a backhand shot from 6 feetShooting · 11% chance +12% EDM –

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 36% · Oilers 64%

Final margin
Oilers by 2
Luck in goals
1.6 for the Oilers
Luck-adjusted margin
Oilers by 0.4
Replay with same day's form
Sharks 47% · Oilers 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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