luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · March 28, 2026

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

Stars at Penguins, Mar 28, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Stars beat the Penguins 6–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Stars win 6 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 24 points of win probability to the Stars.

The biggest swing (P2, 9:48 left): Mikko Rantanen scored on a slap shot from 31 feet, worth 20 points of win probability to the Stars.

Final

Dallas Stars 6
Pittsburgh Penguins 3

March 28, 2026 · PPG Paints Arena

Luck index +44 Stars lucky · −44 Penguins

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. Stars win 6, Penguins win 4.

  1. 1 DAL 4 PIT 0
  2. 2 DAL 4 PIT 1
  3. 3 DAL 2 PIT 0
  4. 4 DAL 4 PIT 2
  5. 5 DAL 2 PIT 1
  6. 6 DAL 2 PIT 1
  7. 7 DAL 5 PIT 6
  8. 8 DAL 0 PIT 1
  9. 9 DAL 2 PIT 4
  10. 10 DAL 4 PIT 7

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

Stars win 56% of them, Penguins 44%. The line is what actually happened: Stars by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Stars by 3+23.5%
Stars by 211.4%
Stars by 120.8%
Penguins by 122.2%
Penguins by 29.7%
Penguins by 3+12.3%

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 +0.8 goals to the Stars: the final margin was Stars by 3, without the luck Stars by 2.2. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Stars3742.65+1.35
Penguins3232.10+0.90

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 18:06 Tripping on the Stars (Colin Blackwell): 2 minutes on the power play +4% PIT
P1 9:07 High sticking on the Penguins (Anthony Mantha): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DAL
P1 7:44 Too many men on the ice on the Penguins (PIT): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DAL
P1 3:22 Tripping on the Penguins (Rutger McGroarty): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DAL
P2 14:15 Tripping on the Penguins (Parker Wotherspoon): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DAL
P2 10:15 High sticking on the Penguins (Elmer Soderblom): 2 minutes on the power play +5% DAL
P2 3:43 Tripping on the Stars (Nils Lundkvist): 2 minutes on the power play +3% PIT
P3 13:40 Holding on the Stars (Jamie Benn): 2 minutes on the power play +2% PIT
P3 9:07 Too many men on the ice on the Stars (DAL): 2 minutes on the power play +6% PIT

When it happened

Penguins’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 73%. 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 Penguins were ahead in it, below while the Stars were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 17:48 Anthony Mantha scored on a tip from 8 feetShooting · 16% chance +13% PIT –
2 P2 17:50 Justin Hryckowian scored on a wrist shot from 12 feetShooting · 12% chance +17% DAL –
3 P2 17:02 Erik Karlsson scored on a wrist shot from 37 feetShooting · 5% chance +18% PIT –
4 P2 12:48 Jason Robertson scored on a wrist shot from 40 feetShooting · 7% chance +19% DAL –
5 P2 9:48 Mikko Rantanen scored on a slap shot from 31 feetShooting · 7% chance +20% DAL –
6 P2 8:22 Lian Bichsel scored on a slap shot from 50 feetShooting · 4% chance +16% DAL –
7 P3 11:06 Noel Acciari scored on a deflected shot from 9 feetShooting · 8% chance +14% PIT –
8 P3 8:37 Bryan Rust missed the net with a wrist shot from 9 feetShooting · 16% chance +6% DAL –

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

Stars 90% · Penguins 10%

Final margin
Stars by 3
Luck in goals
0.8 for the Stars
Luck-adjusted margin
Stars by 2.2
Replay with same day's form
Stars 56% · Penguins 44% 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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