luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · April 2, 2026

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

Bruins at Panthers, Apr 2, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Panthers beat the Bruins 2–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Panthers win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 54 points of win probability to the Panthers.

The biggest swing (P1, 15:40 left): Mackie Samoskevich scored on a snap shot from 35 feet, worth 15 points of win probability to the Panthers.

Final

Boston Bruins 1
Florida Panthers 2

April 2, 2026 · Amerant Bank Arena

Luck index +47 Panthers lucky · −47 Bruins

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. Bruins win 5, Panthers win 5.

  1. 1 BOS 5 FLA 1
  2. 2 BOS 5 FLA 2
  3. 3 BOS 2 FLA 0
  4. 4 BOS 3 FLA 2
  5. 5 BOS 5 FLA 4
  6. 6 BOS 3 FLA 4
  7. 7 BOS 3 FLA 4
  8. 8 BOS 2 FLA 4
  9. 9 BOS 1 FLA 4
  10. 10 BOS 2 FLA 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 4,000 replays ended

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

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Bruins by 3+18.1%
Bruins by 29.1%
Bruins by 120.1%
Panthers by 121.3%
Panthers by 210.4%
Panthers by 3+21.1%

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 +0.2 goals to the Bruins: the final margin was Panthers by 1, without the luck Panthers by 1.2. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Bruins5013.38−2.38
Panthers3622.98−0.98

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 5:08 Slashing on the Panthers (Mackie Samoskevich): 2 minutes on the power play +3% BOS
P3 16:23 High sticking on the Bruins (David Pastrnak): 2 minutes on the power play +5% FLA
P3 3:21 Tripping on the Panthers (A.J. Greer): 2 minutes on the power play +6% BOS

When it happened

Panthers’ 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 Panthers were ahead in it, below while the Bruins were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 15:40 Mackie Samoskevich scored on a snap shot from 35 feetShooting · 6% chance +15% FLA –
2 P1 12:21 Sam Bennett scored on a snap shot from 19 feetShooting · 19% chance +11% FLA –
3 P1 0:27 Fraser Minten scored on a snap shot from 4 feetShooting · 27% chance +10% BOS –
4 P2 7:57 Matthew Tkachuk’s snap shot from 3 feet was savedShooting · 39% chance +6% BOS –
5 P3 19:21 Charlie McAvoy’s wrist shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 19% chanceDavid Pastrnak’s wrist shot from 11 feet was savedShooting · 11% chance +8% FLA –
6 P3 5:23 Morgan Geekie’s wrist shot from 12 feet was savedShooting · 17% chance +6% FLA –
7 P3 1:25 Pavel Zacha’s wrist shot from 15 feet was savedShooting · 15% chance +7% FLA –
8 P3 1:15 Viktor Arvidsson’s wrist shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 15% chance +7% FLA –

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

Bruins 26% · Panthers 74%

Final margin
Panthers by 1
Luck in goals
0.2 for the Bruins
Luck-adjusted margin
Panthers by 1.2
Replay with same day's form
Bruins 47% · Panthers 53% 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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