luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · April 13, 2026 · OT

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

Red Wings at Lightning, Apr 13, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Lightning beat the Red Wings 4–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Lightning win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: overtime alone was worth 49 points of win probability to the Lightning.

The biggest swing (OT): the Lightning won in overtime, worth 49 points of win probability to the Lightning.

Final (OT)

Detroit Red Wings 3
Tampa Bay Lightning 4

April 13, 2026 · Benchmark International Arena

Luck index +47 Lightning lucky · −47 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 5, Lightning win 5.

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

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

Red Wings win 47% of them, Lightning 53%. The line is what actually happened: Lightning by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Red Wings by 3+15.3%
Red Wings by 29.4%
Red Wings by 122.0%
Lightning by 124.1%
Lightning by 210.7%
Lightning by 3+18.4%

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 +0.8 goals to the Lightning: the final margin was Lightning by 1, without the luck Lightning by 0.2. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Red Wings4332.26+0.74
Lightning3332.47+0.53

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 11:38 Slashing on the Lightning (Charle-Edouard D'Astous): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DET
P1 4:30 A Red Wings goal came off the board on review (goal interference) +17% TBL
P2 15:24 Tripping on the Lightning (J.J. Moser): 2 minutes on the power play +5% DET
P2 10:41 Tripping on the Red Wings (Alex DeBrincat): 2 minutes on the power play +5% TBL
P3 9:32 Illegal stick on the Lightning (Charle-Edouard D'Astous): 2 minutes on the power play +5% DET

When it happened

Lightning’ chance of winning

As low as 35% 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 Lightning were ahead in it, below while the Red Wings were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 14:29 David Perron scored on a snap shot from 19 feetShooting · 13% chance +14% DET –
2 P1 4:30 A Red Wings goal came off the board on review (goal interference)Overturned goals +17% TBL –
3 P1 2:55 Conor Geekie scored on a snap shot from 15 feetShooting · 20% chance +15% TBL –
4 P2 4:07 Erik Cernak scored on a wrist shot from 11 feetShooting · 14% chance +20% TBL –
5 P2 1:57 Jake Guentzel scored on a wrist shot from 26 feetShooting · 8% chance +14% TBL –
6 P3 17:04 Marco Kasper scored on a backhand shot from 8 feetShooting · 11% chance +13% DET –
7 P3 4:44 Alex DeBrincat scored on a wrist shot from 9 feetShooting · 11% chance +34% DET –
8 OT The Lightning won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +49% TBL –

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 45% · Lightning 55%

Final margin
Lightning by 1
Luck in goals
0.8 for the Lightning
Luck-adjusted margin
Lightning by 0.2
Replay with same day's form
Red Wings 47% · Lightning 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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