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.

Red Wings at Penguins, Mar 31, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Penguins beat the Red Wings 5–1, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 7 of 10.

The biggest swing (P1, 15:50 left): Rickard Rakell scored on a wrist shot from 39 feet, worth 15 points of win probability to the Penguins.

Final

Detroit Red Wings 1
Pittsburgh Penguins 5

March 31, 2026 · PPG Paints Arena

Luck index +27 Penguins lucky · −27 Red Wings

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. Red Wings win 3, Penguins win 7.

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

Red Wings win 27% of them, Penguins 73%. The line is what actually happened: Penguins by 4.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Red Wings by 3+6.9%
Red Wings by 25.3%
Red Wings by 114.9%
Penguins by 115.1%
Penguins by 210.9%
Penguins by 3+46.9%

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 Penguins: the final margin was Penguins by 4, without the luck Penguins by 2.1. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Red Wings4212.69−1.69
Penguins5354.17+0.83

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 4:23 High sticking on the Red Wings (Ben Chiarot): 2 minutes on the power play +3% PIT
P2 16:48 Hooking on the Penguins (Anthony Mantha): 2 minutes on the power play +1% DET
P3 18:37 Tripping on the Red Wings (Dylan Larkin): 2 minutes on the power play +1% PIT
P3 6:29 Too many men on the ice on the Red Wings (DET): 2 minutes on the power play 0% PIT

When it happened

Penguins’ 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 Penguins were ahead in it, below while the Red Wings were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 15:50 Rickard Rakell scored on a wrist shot from 39 feetShooting · 4% chance +15% PIT –
2 P1 14:07 Tommy Novak’s wrist shot from 5 feet was savedShooting · 23% chance +3% DET –
3 P1 11:31 Connor Dewar’s wrist shot from 5 feet was savedShooting · 15% chance +2% DET –
4 P1 11:26 Anthony Mantha scored on a wrist shot from 5 feetShooting · 24% chance +10% PIT –
5 P1 4:23 High sticking on the Red Wings (Ben Chiarot): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +3% PIT –
6 P1 1:58 Egor Chinakhov scored on a wrist shot from 39 feetShooting · 4% chance +8% PIT –
7 P2 16:43 Dylan Larkin scored on a wrist shot from 9 feetShooting · 17% chance +7% DET –
8 P2 7:37 Justin Brazeau scored on a tip from 18 feetShooting · 8% chance +7% PIT –

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

Red Wings 16% · Penguins 84%

Final margin
Penguins by 4
Luck in goals
1.9 for the Penguins
Luck-adjusted margin
Penguins by 2.1
Replay with same day's form
Red Wings 27% · Penguins 73% 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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