luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · March 30, 2026

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

Blues at Sharks, Mar 30, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Sharks beat the Blues 5–4, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 6 of 10. The Blues had the bounces: goaltending alone was worth 18 points of win probability to the Blues.

The biggest swing (P3, 0:22 left): Adam Gaudette scored on a wrist shot from 32 feet, worth 44 points of win probability to the Sharks.

Final

St. Louis Blues 4
San Jose Sharks 5

March 30, 2026 · SAP Center at San Jose

Luck index +40 Sharks lucky · −40 Blues

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. Blues win 4, Sharks win 6.

  1. 1 STL 5 SJS 2
  2. 2 STL 3 SJS 1
  3. 3 STL 5 SJS 4
  4. 4 STL 2 SJS 1
  5. 5 STL 2 SJS 3
  6. 6 STL 1 SJS 2
  7. 7 STL 1 SJS 3
  8. 8 STL 1 SJS 4
  9. 9 STL 1 SJS 4
  10. 10 STL 3 SJS 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 4,000.1 replays ended

Blues win 40% of them, Sharks 60%. The line is what actually happened: Sharks by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Blues by 3+10.5%
Blues by 28.5%
Blues by 120.7%
Sharks by 123.2%
Sharks by 212.5%
Sharks by 3+24.7%

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 0.0 goals to the Sharks: the final margin was Sharks by 1, without the luck Sharks by 0.9. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Blues3542.34+1.66
Sharks3852.67+2.33

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 12:49 Delaying game puck over glass on the Blues (Robert Thomas): 2 minutes on the power play +4% SJS
P1 7:21 Interference on the Blues (Dalibor Dvorsky): 2 minutes on the power play +4% SJS
P2 18:46 Delaying game puck over glass on the Sharks (Shakir Mukhamadullin): 2 minutes on the power play +4% STL
P2 18:08 High sticking on the Blues (Pius Suter): 2 minutes on the power play +4% SJS
P2 10:52 Hooking on the Blues (Philip Broberg): 2 minutes on the power play +4% SJS
P2 0:54 Hooking on the Sharks (Shakir Mukhamadullin): 2 minutes on the power play +2% STL
P3 8:52 Tripping on the Sharks (Yaroslav Askarov): 2 minutes on the power play +5% STL

When it happened

Sharks’ chance of winning

As low as 37% and as high as 100%. 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 Blues were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 14:32 Theo Lindstein scored on a wrist shot from 31 feetShooting · 4% chance +16% STL –
2 P1 11:30 Alexander Wennberg scored on a wrist shot from 16 feetShooting · 17% chance +14% SJS –
3 P1 6:35 Macklin Celebrini scored on a slap shot from 43 feetShooting · 8% chance +16% SJS –
4 P1 3:21 Pavel Buchnevich scored on a tip from 18 feetShooting · 8% chance +16% STL –
5 P1 0:56 Macklin Celebrini scored on a wrist shot from 15 feetShooting · 12% chance +16% SJS –
6 P3 7:07 Cam Fowler scored on a wrist shot from 41 feetShooting · 3% chance +34% STL –
7 P3 0:22 Adam Gaudette scored on a wrist shot from 32 feetShooting · 5% chance +44% SJS –
8 P3 0:02 Philip Broberg missed the net with a slap shot from 21 feetShooting · 27% chance +13% SJS –

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

Blues 29% · Sharks 71%

Final margin
Sharks by 1
Luck in goals
none
Luck-adjusted margin
Sharks by 1.0
Replay with same day's form
Blues 40% · Sharks 60% 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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