luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · March 31, 2026

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

Flyers at Capitals, Mar 31, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Capitals beat the Flyers 6–4, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Capitals win 4 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 37 points of win probability to the Capitals.

The biggest swing (P2, 13:02 left): Jakob Chychrun scored on a slap shot from 43 feet, worth 18 points of win probability to the Capitals.

Final

Philadelphia Flyers 4
Washington Capitals 6

March 31, 2026 · Capital One Arena

Luck index +58 Capitals lucky · −58 Flyers

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 6, Capitals win 4.

  1. 1 PHI 6 WSH 1
  2. 2 PHI 4 WSH 1
  3. 3 PHI 3 WSH 0
  4. 4 PHI 5 WSH 3
  5. 5 PHI 2 WSH 1
  6. 6 PHI 4 WSH 3
  7. 7 PHI 4 WSH 5
  8. 8 PHI 2 WSH 3
  9. 9 PHI 1 WSH 3
  10. 10 PHI 2 WSH 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 4,000.2 replays ended

Flyers win 58% of them, Capitals 42%. The line is what actually happened: Capitals by 2.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Flyers by 3+24.3%
Flyers by 210.7%
Flyers by 122.6%
Capitals by 122.3%
Capitals by 27.8%
Capitals by 3+12.2%

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 +1.9 goals to the Capitals: the final margin was Capitals by 2, without the luck Capitals by 0.1. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Flyers4343.07+0.93
Capitals2552.00+3.00

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 16:31 Delaying game puck over glass on the Flyers (Porter Martone): 2 minutes on the power play +4% WSH
P1 8:53 Tripping on the Capitals (Cole Hutson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% PHI
P2 14:31 Tripping on the Flyers (Travis Konecny): 2 minutes on the power play +5% WSH
P2 10:09 Hooking on the Capitals (Cole Hutson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% PHI
P2 4:01 Tripping on the Flyers (Trevor Zegras): 2 minutes on the power play +4% WSH
P3 3:47 Tripping on the Capitals (Dylan Strome): 2 minutes on the power play +6% PHI
P3 0:00 Tripping on the Capitals (Justin Sourdif): 2 minutes on the power play 0% PHI

When it happened

Capitals’ 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 Capitals were ahead in it, below while the Flyers were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 5:01 Tom Wilson scored on a snap shot from 43 feetShooting · 5% chance +17% WSH –
2 P2 19:21 Travis Sanheim scored on a snap shot from 36 feetShooting · 9% chance +13% PHI –
3 P2 15:24 Carl Grundstrom scored on a wrist shot from 2 feetShooting · 37% chance +12% PHI –
4 P2 13:02 Jakob Chychrun scored on a slap shot from 43 feetShooting · 8% chance +18% WSH –
5 P2 2:23 Ryan Leonard scored on a snap shot from 30 feetShooting · 11% chance +13% WSH –
6 P3 19:27 Christian Dvorak scored on a snap shot from 7 feetShooting · 16% chance +12% PHI –
7 P3 16:13 Alex Ovechkin scored on a snap shot from 8 feetShooting · 23% chance +11% WSH –
8 P3 12:08 Denver Barkey scored on a tip from 19 feetShooting · 8% chance +13% 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 43% · Capitals 57%

Final margin
Capitals by 2
Luck in goals
1.9 for the Capitals
Luck-adjusted margin
Capitals by 0.1
Replay with same day's form
Flyers 58% · Capitals 42% 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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