First round 2025-26 · April 27, 2026
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Flyers at Penguins, Game 5, first round 2025-26: who deserved to win?
The Penguins beat the Flyers 3–2, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 6 of 10.
The biggest swing (P2, 2:48 left): Kris Letang scored on a wrist shot from 69 feet, worth 23 points of win probability to the Penguins.
Final
| 2 | |
| 3 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +38 Penguins lucky · −38 Flyers
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. Flyers win 4, Penguins win 6.
- 1 PHI 3 PIT 0
- 2 PHI 3 PIT 1
- 3 PHI 2 PIT 1
- 4 PHI 3 PIT 2
- 5 PHI 1 PIT 2
- 6 PHI 1 PIT 2
- 7 PHI 5 PIT 6
- 8 PHI 1 PIT 3
- 9 PHI 2 PIT 5
- 10 PHI 1 PIT 5
Three other ways to ask
Each answers a different question, so none of them replaces the replay above.
Before puck drop
No closing line for this game.
Same teams, fresh game
Needs the closing line, which this game has not got.
Only coin-flips re-rolled
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
Flyers win 38% of them, Penguins 62%. The line is what actually happened: Penguins by 1.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Flyers by 3+ | 9.6% |
| Flyers by 2 | 9.1% |
| Flyers by 1 | 19.4% |
| Penguins by 1 | 23.3% |
| Penguins by 2 | 12.5% |
| Penguins by 3+ | 26.0% |
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.
| Shooting | Unblocked attempts | Goals | Expected goals | Above expected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 42 | 2 | 2.00 | 0.00 | |
| 40 | 3 | 2.72 | +0.28 |
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.
| When | Call | Win probability for |
|---|---|---|
| P1 15:43 | Tripping on the Penguins (Samuel Girard): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% PHI |
| P1 5:33 | Tripping on the Flyers (Garnet Hathaway): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% PIT |
| P2 10:37 | Tripping on the Penguins (Erik Karlsson): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% PHI |
| P3 18:23 | Tripping on the Flyers (Emil Andrae): 2 minutes on the power play | +5% PIT |
| P3 0:00 | Cross checking on the Flyers (Travis Konecny): 2 minutes on the power play | +6% PIT |
When it happened
Penguins’ chance of winning
Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 17:15 | Elmer Soderblom scored on a wrist shot from 20 feetShooting · 15% chance | +13% PIT | – |
| 2 | P2 16:43 | Connor Dewar scored on a snap shot from 28 feetShooting · 9% chance | +13% PIT | – |
| 3 | P2 16:31 | Alex Bump scored on a wrist shot from 17 feetShooting · 7% chance | +13% PHI | – |
| 4 | P2 9:53 | Tyson Foerster missed the net with a snap shot from 16 feetShooting · 23% chance | +5% PIT | – |
| 5 | P2 4:54 | Travis Sanheim scored on a wrist shot from 47 feetShooting · 1% chance | +22% PHI | – |
| 6 | P2 2:48 | Kris Letang scored on a wrist shot from 69 feetShooting · 1% chance | +23% PIT | – |
| 7 | P3 18:23 | Tripping on the Flyers (Emil Andrae): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +5% PIT | – |
| 8 | P3 0:00 | Cross checking on the Flyers (Travis Konecny): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +6% 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
Flyers 16% · Penguins 84%
- Final margin
- Penguins by 1
- Luck in goals
- 0.7 for the Flyers
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Penguins by 1.7
- Replay with same day's form
- Flyers 38% · Penguins 62% unchanged: why
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.
More from first round, 2025-26
- Penguins at Flyers Apr 26, 2026 · PIT 4–2 · replay 37% for the winner
- Flyers at Penguins Apr 20, 2026 · PHI 3–0 · replay 38% for the winner
- Penguins at Flyers Apr 29, 2026 · PHI 1–0 OT · replay 40% for the winner
- Hurricanes at Senators Apr 25, 2026 · CAR 4–2 · replay 46% for the winner
- Penguins at Flyers Apr 22, 2026 · PHI 5–2 · replay 49% for the winner
- Senators at Hurricanes Apr 20, 2026 · CAR 3–2 OT · replay 63% for the winner
- Flyers at Penguins Apr 19, 2026 · PHI 3–2 · replay 66% for the winner
- Hurricanes at Senators Apr 23, 2026 · CAR 2–1 · replay 66% for the winner
- Senators at Hurricanes Apr 18, 2026 · CAR 2–0 · replay 77% for the winner
- Canadiens at Lightning May 3, 2026 · MTL 2–1 · replay 25% for the winner
- Golden Knights at Mammoth Apr 25, 2026 · UTA 4–2 · replay 30% for the winner
- Ducks at Oilers Apr 23, 2026 · ANA 6–4 · replay 42% for the winner