luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

First round 2025-26 · April 29, 2026

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

Wild at Stars, Game 5, first round 2025-26: who deserved to win?

The Wild beat the Stars 4–2, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Wild win 6 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 15 points of win probability to the Wild.

The biggest swing (P2, 0:32 left): Matt Boldy scored on a snap shot from 39 feet, worth 24 points of win probability to the Wild.

Final

Minnesota Wild 4
Dallas Stars 2

April 29, 2026 · American Airlines Center

Luck index +43 Wild lucky · −43 Stars

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. Wild win 6, Stars win 4.

  1. 1 MIN 6 DAL 2
  2. 2 MIN 4 DAL 1
  3. 3 MIN 5 DAL 2
  4. 4 MIN 3 DAL 1
  5. 5 MIN 2 DAL 1
  6. 6 MIN 5 DAL 4
  7. 7 MIN 1 DAL 2
  8. 8 MIN 1 DAL 2
  9. 9 MIN 3 DAL 5
  10. 10 MIN 1 DAL 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

Wild win 57% of them, Stars 43%. The line is what actually happened: Wild by 2.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Wild by 3+25.4%
Wild by 212.2%
Wild by 119.9%
Stars by 121.0%
Stars by 28.6%
Stars by 3+12.9%

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 +0.7 goals to the Wild: the final margin was Wild by 2, without the luck Wild by 1.3. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Wild3632.94+0.06
Stars4322.87−0.87

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 11:44 Slashing on the Wild (Bobby Brink): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DAL
P1 1:51 Interference on the Stars (Lian Bichsel): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MIN
P1 0:13 A Wild goal came off the board on review (goal interference) +19% DAL
P2 16:13 Tripping on the Wild (Joel Eriksson Ek): 2 minutes on the power play +5% DAL
P2 10:07 Interference on the Stars (Tyler Myers): 2 minutes on the power play +5% MIN
P2 1:18 Too many men on the ice on the Stars (DAL): 2 minutes on the power play +6% MIN
P3 11:17 Tripping on the Wild (Jake Middleton): 2 minutes on the power play +2% DAL
P3 1:23 Slashing on the Wild (Jared Spurgeon): 2 minutes on the power play +1% DAL

When it happened

Stars’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 54%. 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 Stars were ahead in it, below while the Wild were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 16:09 Mats Zuccarello scored on a snap shot from 10 feetShooting · 18% chance +13% MIN –
2 P1 11:02 Miro Heiskanen scored on a slap shot from 50 feetShooting · 5% chance +16% DAL –
3 P1 0:15 Matt Boldy’s snap shot from 6 feet was savedShooting · 31% chance +6% DAL –
4 P1 0:13 A Wild goal came off the board on review (goal interference)Overturned goals +19% DAL –
5 P2 1:18 Too many men on the ice on the Stars (DAL): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +6% MIN –
6 P2 0:32 Matt Boldy scored on a snap shot from 39 feetShooting · 7% chance +24% MIN –
7 P3 12:13 Michael McCarron scored on a snap shot from 11 feetShooting · 11% chance +13% MIN –
8 P3 3:21 Jason Robertson scored on a snap shot from 9 feetShooting · 10% chance +8% DAL –

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

Wild 76% · Stars 24%

Final margin
Wild by 2
Luck in goals
0.7 for the Wild
Luck-adjusted margin
Wild by 1.3
Replay with same day's form
Wild 57% · Stars 43% 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.

All first round 2025-26 games · Wild · Stars

More from first round, 2025-26

Every game of first round, 2025-26