luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · April 4, 2026

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

Jets at Blue Jackets, Apr 4, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Jets beat the Blue Jackets 2–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Jets win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 28 points of win probability to the Jets.

The game turned on a luck play (P2, 1:46 left): Kyle Connor scored on a wrist shot from 14 feet, worth 21 points of win probability to the Jets. The biggest single swing (P3, 9:02 left): Kyle Connor scored on a wrist shot from 32 feet.

Final

Winnipeg Jets 2
Columbus Blue Jackets 1

April 4, 2026 · Nationwide Arena

Luck index +53 Jets lucky · −53 Blue Jackets

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. Jets win 5, Blue Jackets win 5.

  1. 1 WPG 3 CBJ 0
  2. 2 WPG 4 CBJ 2
  3. 3 WPG 2 CBJ 1
  4. 4 WPG 3 CBJ 2
  5. 5 WPG 2 CBJ 1
  6. 6 WPG 2 CBJ 3
  7. 7 WPG 2 CBJ 3
  8. 8 WPG 0 CBJ 2
  9. 9 WPG 1 CBJ 3
  10. 10 WPG 2 CBJ 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 replays ended

Jets win 47% of them, Blue Jackets 53%. The line is what actually happened: Jets by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Jets by 3+13.6%
Jets by 29.6%
Jets by 123.4%
Blue Jackets by 126.3%
Blue Jackets by 211.6%
Blue Jackets by 3+15.5%

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 +1.0 goals to the Jets: the final margin was Jets by 1, without the luck even. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Jets3921.96+0.04
Blue Jackets3612.25−1.25

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
P2 9:07 Tripping on the Blue Jackets (Danton Heinen): 2 minutes on the power play +4% WPG
P3 0:09 Tripping on the Jets (Mark Scheifele): 2 minutes on the power play +6% CBJ

When it happened

Blue Jackets’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 76%. 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 Blue Jackets were ahead in it, below while the Jets were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 18:43 Ivan Provorov scored on a snap shot from 8 feetShooting · 17% chance +13% CBJ –
2 P2 1:46 The game turned hereKyle Connor scored on a wrist shot from 14 feetShooting · 11% chance +21% WPG –
3 P3 15:52 Boone Jenner’s snap shot from 21 feet was savedShooting · 4% chanceBoone Jenner missed the net with a snap shot from 12 feetShooting · 15% chance +5% WPG –
4 P3 9:09 Mark Scheifele’s slap shot from 25 feet was savedShooting · 15% chance +5% CBJ –
5 P3 9:02 Kyle Connor scored on a wrist shot from 32 feetShooting · 6% chance +31% WPG –
6 P3 7:21 Boone Jenner missed the net with a snap shot from 15 feetShooting · 15% chance +5% WPG –
7 P3 0:09 Tripping on the Jets (Mark Scheifele): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +6% CBJ –
8 P3 0:06 Adam Fantilli’s snap shot from 20 feet was savedShooting · 17% chance +8% WPG –

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

Jets 44% · Blue Jackets 56%

Final margin
Jets by 1
Luck in goals
1.0 for the Jets
Luck-adjusted margin
even
Replay with same day's form
Jets 47% · Blue Jackets 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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