2025-26 regular season · March 21, 2026
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Bruins at Red Wings, Mar 21, 2026: who deserved to win?
The Bruins beat the Red Wings 4–2, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Bruins win 4 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 35 points of win probability to the Bruins.
The game turned on a luck play (P3, 13:38 left): Elias Lindholm scored on a wrist shot from 24 feet, worth 27 points of win probability to the Bruins. The biggest single swing (P3, 10:18 left): Nikita Zadorov scored on a wrist shot from 46 feet.
Final
 Boston Bruins | 4 |
|---|---|
 Detroit Red Wings | 2 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +58 Bruins lucky · −58 Red Wings
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, Red Wings win 6.
- 1 BOS 7 DET 3
- 2 BOS 4 DET 1
- 3 BOS 2 DET 1
- 4 BOS 5 DET 4
- 5 BOS 6 DET 7
- 6 BOS 3 DET 4
- 7 BOS 1 DET 3
- 8 BOS 1 DET 4
- 9 BOS 2 DET 5
- 10 BOS 3 DET 8
Three other ways to ask
Each answers a different question, so none of them replaces the replay above.
Before puck drop
No closing line for this game.
Same teams, fresh game
Needs the closing line, which this game has not got.
Only coin-flips re-rolled
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 42% of them, Red Wings 58%. The line is what actually happened: Bruins by 2.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Bruins by 3+ | 15.1% |
| Bruins by 2 | 8.4% |
| Bruins by 1 | 18.6% |
| Red Wings by 1 | 20.2% |
| Red Wings by 2 | 10.4% |
| Red Wings by 3+ | 27.4% |
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.
| Shooting | Unblocked attempts | Goals | Expected goals | Above expected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Bruins | 37 | 3 | 3.10 | −0.10 |
 Red Wings | 56 | 2 | 4.00 | −2.00 |
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.
| When | Call | Win probability for |
|---|---|---|
| P1 16:55 | High sticking on the Red Wings (Mason Appleton): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% BOS |
| P1 4:19 | Tripping on the Bruins (Mark Kastelic): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% DET |
| P1 1:03 | Hooking on the Bruins (Casey Mittelstadt): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% DET |
| P2 16:56 | High sticking on the Bruins (Hampus Lindholm): 2 minutes on the power play | +5% DET |
| P2 15:25 | Interference on the Red Wings (David Perron): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% BOS |
| P2 15:17 | Delaying game puck over glass on the Red Wings (Moritz Seider): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% BOS |
| P3 12:49 | Tripping on the Bruins (Jonathan Aspirot): 2 minutes on the power play | +7% DET |
When it happened
Red Wings’ chance of winning
As low as 0% and as high as 80%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 16:14 | Elias Lindholm hit the left post with a wrist shot from 2 feetShooting · 52% chance | +8% DET | – |
| 2 | P2 16:25 | Lucas Raymond scored on a snap shot from 20 feetShooting · 14% chance | +17% DET | – |
| 3 | P2 14:53 | David Pastrnak scored on a slap shot from 35 feetShooting · 11% chance | +17% BOS | – |
| 4 | P3 15:54 | Alex DeBrincat scored on a snap shot from 49 feetShooting · 2% chance | +27% DET | – |
| 5 | P3 13:38 | The game turned hereElias Lindholm scored on a wrist shot from 24 feetShooting · 5% chance | +27% BOS | – |
| 6 | P3 12:49 | Tripping on the Bruins (Jonathan Aspirot): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +7% DET | – |
| 7 | P3 10:18 | Nikita Zadorov scored on a wrist shot from 46 feetShooting · 2% chance | +32% BOS | – |
| 8 | P3 6:38 | Emmitt Finnie’s tip from 3 feet was savedShooting · 25% chance | +9% BOS | – |
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 63% · Red Wings 37%
- Final margin
- Bruins by 2
- Luck in goals
- 1.4 for the Bruins
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Bruins by 0.6
- Replay with same day's form
- Bruins 42% · Red Wings 58% unchanged: why
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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