luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · March 24, 2026

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

Capitals at Blues, Mar 24, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Blues beat the Capitals 3–0, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 6 of 10.

The biggest swing (P2, 17:21 left): Jimmy Snuggerud scored on a slap shot from 32 feet, worth 18 points of win probability to the Blues.

Final

Washington Capitals 0
St. Louis Blues 3

March 24, 2026 · Enterprise Center

Luck index +38 Blues lucky · −38 Capitals

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. Capitals win 4, Blues win 6.

  1. 1 WSH 4 STL 1
  2. 2 WSH 3 STL 1
  3. 3 WSH 3 STL 2
  4. 4 WSH 3 STL 2
  5. 5 WSH 3 STL 4
  6. 6 WSH 2 STL 3
  7. 7 WSH 2 STL 4
  8. 8 WSH 1 STL 3
  9. 9 WSH 1 STL 4
  10. 10 WSH 5 STL 9

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 4,000.2 replays ended

Capitals win 38% of them, Blues 62%. The line is what actually happened: Blues by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Capitals by 3+10.0%
Capitals by 28.1%
Capitals by 119.6%
Blues by 122.7%
Blues by 212.7%
Blues by 3+26.8%

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 Blues: the final margin was Blues by 3, without the luck Blues by 2. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Capitals3702.29−2.29
Blues4222.78−0.78

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 12:14 Hooking on the Blues (Theo Lindstein): 2 minutes on the power play +4% WSH
P1 6:15 Tripping on the Capitals (Jakob Chychrun): 2 minutes on the power play +4% STL
P1 0:48 Slashing on the Blues (Jake Neighbours): 2 minutes on the power play +4% WSH
P2 5:26 Slashing on the Capitals (Connor McMichael): 2 minutes on the power play +4% STL
P3 11:35 Match penalty on the Capitals (Pierre-Luc Dubois): 3 minutes on the power play +8% STL
P3 9:22 Too many men on the ice on the Blues (STL): 2 minutes on the power play +5% WSH

When it happened

Blues’ 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 Blues were ahead in it, below while the Capitals were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 11:08 Justin Sourdif’s snap shot from 10 feet was savedShooting · 27% chance +5% STL –
2 P1 6:15 Tripping on the Capitals (Jakob Chychrun): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% STL –
3 P1 0:48 Slashing on the Blues (Jake Neighbours): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% WSH –
4 P2 17:21 Jimmy Snuggerud scored on a slap shot from 32 feetShooting · 7% chance +18% STL –
5 P2 5:26 Slashing on the Capitals (Connor McMichael): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% STL –
6 P3 11:35 Match penalty on the Capitals (Pierre-Luc Dubois): 3 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +8% STL –
7 P3 9:22 Too many men on the ice on the Blues (STL): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% WSH –
8 P3 5:08 Otto Stenberg scored on a snap shot from 6 feetShooting · 22% chance +8% STL –

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

Capitals 12% · Blues 88%

Final margin
Blues by 3
Luck in goals
1.0 for the Blues
Luck-adjusted margin
Blues by 2.0
Replay with same day's form
Capitals 38% · Blues 62% 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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