luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · April 14, 2026

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

Penguins at Blues, Apr 14, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Blues beat the Penguins 7–5, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 7 of 10. The Penguins had the bounces: goaltending alone was worth 21 points of win probability to the Penguins.

The biggest swing (P3, 15:49 left): Dylan Holloway scored on a wrist shot from 24 feet, worth 24 points of win probability to the Blues.

Final

Pittsburgh Penguins 5
St. Louis Blues 7

April 14, 2026 · Enterprise Center

Luck index +34 Blues lucky · −34 Penguins

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. Penguins win 3, Blues win 7.

  1. 1 PIT 4 STL 1
  2. 2 PIT 4 STL 2
  3. 3 PIT 5 STL 4
  4. 4 PIT 0 STL 1
  5. 5 PIT 1 STL 2
  6. 6 PIT 3 STL 5
  7. 7 PIT 1 STL 4
  8. 8 PIT 0 STL 3
  9. 9 PIT 2 STL 6
  10. 10 PIT 0 STL 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 3,999.8 replays ended

Penguins win 34% of them, Blues 66%. The line is what actually happened: Blues by 2.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Penguins by 3+9.7%
Penguins by 25.9%
Penguins by 118.0%
Blues by 119.2%
Blues by 211.8%
Blues by 3+35.4%

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 +0.2 goals to the Penguins: the final margin was Blues by 2, without the luck Blues by 2.2. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Penguins3552.37+2.63
Blues4363.80+2.20

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 5:22 Interference on the Penguins (Elmer Soderblom): 2 minutes on the power play +4% STL
P2 9:09 Roughing on the Blues (Nathan Walker): 2 minutes on the power play +4% PIT
P2 4:26 Roughing on the Penguins (Anthony Mantha): 2 minutes on the power play +5% STL
P3 9:45 Holding on the Blues (Dylan Holloway): 2 minutes on the power play +2% PIT
P3 0:14 Holding on the Penguins (Ilya Solovyov): 2 minutes on the power play 0% STL

When it happened

Blues’ chance of winning

As low as 7% 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 Blues were ahead in it, below while the Penguins were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 9:46 Rutger McGroarty scored on a wrist shot from 20 feetShooting · 10% chance +15% PIT –
2 P1 3:20 Avery Hayes scored on a wrist shot from 23 feetShooting · 13% chance +13% PIT –
3 P1 2:37 Anthony Mantha scored on a wrist shot from 20 feetShooting · 16% chance +9% PIT –
4 P2 9:23 Logan Mailloux scored on a wrist shot from 43 feetShooting · 3% chance +16% STL –
5 P2 4:11 Jimmy Snuggerud scored on a snap shot from 5 feetShooting · 38% chance +15% STL –
6 P3 15:49 Dylan Holloway scored on a wrist shot from 24 feetShooting · 12% chance +24% STL –
7 P3 15:05 Pavel Buchnevich scored on a wrist shot from 23 feetShooting · 12% chance +13% STL –
8 P3 7:40 Avery Hayes scored on a wrist shot from 10 feetShooting · 7% chance +11% 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

Penguins 9% · Blues 91%

Final margin
Blues by 2
Luck in goals
0.2 for the Penguins
Luck-adjusted margin
Blues by 2.2
Replay with same day's form
Penguins 34% · Blues 66% 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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