luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · March 21, 2026

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

Flyers at Sharks, Mar 21, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Flyers beat the Sharks 4–1, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 7 of 10. The Sharks had the bounces: goaltending alone was worth 23 points of win probability to the Sharks.

The biggest swing (P3, 18:13 left): Christian Dvorak scored on a wrist shot from 30 feet, worth 25 points of win probability to the Flyers.

Final

Philadelphia Flyers 4
San Jose Sharks 1

March 21, 2026 · SAP Center at San Jose

Luck index +29 Flyers lucky · −29 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. Flyers win 7, Sharks win 3.

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

Flyers win 71% of them, Sharks 29%. The line is what actually happened: Flyers by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Flyers by 3+46.3%
Flyers by 210.0%
Flyers by 115.0%
Sharks by 115.8%
Sharks by 25.7%
Sharks by 3+7.1%

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 +0.4 goals to the Sharks: the final margin was Flyers by 3, without the luck Flyers by 3.4. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Flyers4024.27−2.27
Sharks3912.42−1.42

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 14:51 Holding on the Sharks (Collin Graf): 2 minutes on the power play +4% PHI
P1 9:42 Kneeing on the Flyers (Trevor Zegras): 2 minutes on the power play +4% SJS
P1 4:20 Too many men on the ice on the Flyers (PHI): 2 minutes on the power play +4% SJS
P2 14:58 Hooking on the Sharks (Philipp Kurashev): 2 minutes on the power play +4% PHI
P2 7:41 Delaying game puck over glass on the Flyers (Emil Andrae): 2 minutes on the power play +5% SJS
P2 3:43 Holding on the Sharks (William Eklund): 2 minutes on the power play +5% PHI
P3 18:46 Roughing on the Sharks (Mario Ferraro): 2 minutes on the power play +6% PHI
P3 15:04 Tripping on the Flyers (Trevor Zegras): 2 minutes on the power play +5% SJS
P3 12:20 Slashing on the Sharks (Macklin Celebrini): 2 minutes on the power play +5% PHI

When it happened

Sharks’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 54%. 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 Sharks were ahead in it, below while the Flyers were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 4:33 Owen Tippett’s wrist shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 14% chanceOwen Tippett’s wrist shot from 4 feet was savedShooting · 21% chance +6% SJS –
2 P2 17:34 Owen Tippett scored on a wrist shot from 24 feetShooting · 11% chance +17% PHI –
3 P2 13:31 Matvei Michkov missed the net with a wrist shot from 4 feetShooting · 38% chanceChristian Dvorak’s backhand shot from 5 feet was savedShooting · 22% chance +10% SJS –
4 P2 13:30 Matvei Michkov’s backhand shot from 3 feet was savedShooting · 35% chance +6% SJS –
5 P2 6:48 Dmitry Orlov scored on a wrist shot from 24 feetShooting · 14% chance +20% SJS –
6 P2 3:43 Holding on the Sharks (William Eklund): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% PHI –
7 P3 18:46 Roughing on the Sharks (Mario Ferraro): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +6% PHI –
8 P3 18:13 Christian Dvorak scored on a wrist shot from 30 feetShooting · 7% chance +25% PHI –

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

Flyers 95% · Sharks 5%

Final margin
Flyers by 3
Luck in goals
0.4 for the Sharks
Luck-adjusted margin
Flyers by 3.4
Replay with same day's form
Flyers 71% · Sharks 29% 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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