luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · March 26, 2026 · OT

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

Sharks at Blues, Mar 26, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Blues beat the Sharks 2–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Blues win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: overtime alone was worth 49 points of win probability to the Blues.

The biggest swing (OT): the Blues won in overtime, worth 49 points of win probability to the Blues.

Final (OT)

San Jose Sharks 1
St. Louis Blues 2

March 26, 2026 · Enterprise Center

Luck index +53 Blues lucky · −53 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, Blues win 5.

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

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 3,999.9 replays ended

Sharks win 53% of them, Blues 47%. The line is what actually happened: Blues by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Sharks by 3+17.4%
Sharks by 210.7%
Sharks by 125.1%
Blues by 124.1%
Blues by 29.9%
Blues by 3+12.7%

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 +1.1 goals to the Blues: the final margin was Blues by 1, without the luck Sharks by 0.1. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Sharks3412.01−1.01
Blues3111.82−0.82

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 16:20 Holding the stick on the Blues (Philip Broberg): 2 minutes on the power play +4% SJS
P1 13:51 Hooking on the Sharks (Adam Gaudette): 2 minutes on the power play +4% STL
P2 16:57 Instigator on the Sharks (Zack Ostapchuk): 2 minutes on the power play +5% STL

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 Sharks were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 13:51 Hooking on the Sharks (Adam Gaudette): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% STL –
2 P2 16:57 Instigator on the Sharks (Zack Ostapchuk): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% STL –
3 P2 2:41 Dalibor Dvorsky scored on a snap shot from 19 feetShooting · 21% chance +19% STL –
4 P3 15:37 Kiefer Sherwood hit the right post with a wrist shot from 23 feetShooting · 14% chance +4% STL –
5 P3 14:56 Alexander Wennberg scored on a wrist shot from 18 feetShooting · 12% chance +25% SJS –
6 P3 6:47 Macklin Celebrini’s wrist shot from 11 feet was savedShooting · 15% chance +5% STL –
7 P3 6:35 Collin Graf’s wrist shot from 25 feet was savedShooting · 11% chance +4% STL –
8 OT The Blues won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +49% 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

Sharks 54% · Blues 46%

Final margin
Blues by 1
Luck in goals
1.1 for the Blues
Luck-adjusted margin
Sharks by 0.1
Replay with same day's form
Sharks 53% · Blues 47% 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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