Stanley Cup Final 2025-26 · June 3, 2026
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Golden Knights at Hurricanes, Game 1, Stanley Cup Final 2025-26: who deserved to win?
The Golden Knights beat the Hurricanes 5–4, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 6 of 10. The Hurricanes had the bounces: shooting alone was worth 22 points of win probability to the Hurricanes.
The game turned on a luck play (P3, 18:39 left): Brett Howden scored on a tip from 6 feet, worth 23 points of win probability to the Golden Knights. The biggest single swing (P3, 3:24 left): Tomas Hertl scored on a snap shot from 24 feet.
Final
 Vegas Golden Knights | 5 |
|---|---|
 Carolina Hurricanes | 4 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +37 Golden Knights lucky · −37 Hurricanes
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. Golden Knights win 6, Hurricanes win 4.
- 1 VGK 5 CAR 0
- 2 VGK 5 CAR 2
- 3 VGK 5 CAR 2
- 4 VGK 4 CAR 2
- 5 VGK 5 CAR 4
- 6 VGK 5 CAR 4
- 7 VGK 5 CAR 6
- 8 VGK 1 CAR 2
- 9 VGK 2 CAR 4
- 10 VGK 2 CAR 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 4,000.3 replays ended
Golden Knights win 63% of them, Hurricanes 37%. The line is what actually happened: Golden Knights by 1.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Golden Knights by 3+ | 33.6% |
| Golden Knights by 2 | 11.5% |
| Golden Knights by 1 | 18.0% |
| Hurricanes by 1 | 18.8% |
| Hurricanes by 2 | 6.7% |
| Hurricanes by 3+ | 11.4% |
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.
| Shooting | Unblocked attempts | Goals | Expected goals | Above expected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Golden Knights | 37 | 5 | 3.59 | +1.41 |
 Hurricanes | 46 | 4 | 2.45 | +1.55 |
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 6:23 | Cross checking on the Golden Knights (Brett Howden): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% CAR |
| P2 12:14 | Hooking on the Hurricanes (Mark Jankowski): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% VGK |
| P2 1:25 | Tripping on the Hurricanes (Jalen Chatfield): 2 minutes on the power play | +6% VGK |
| P3 13:51 | Closing hand on puck on the Golden Knights (Rasmus Andersson): 2 minutes on the power play | +5% CAR |
| P3 10:57 | Delaying game puck over glass on the Hurricanes (Mark Jankowski): 2 minutes on the power play | +5% VGK |
When it happened
Hurricanes’ chance of winning
As low as 0% and as high as 84%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 19:35 | Nikolaj Ehlers scored on a snap shot from 30 feetShooting · 10% chance | +14% CAR | – |
| 2 | P1 6:32 | Shea Theodore scored on a slap shot from 56 feetShooting · 2% chance | +13% VGK | – |
| 3 | P2 19:30 | Ivan Barbashev scored on a snap shot from 30 feetShooting · 9% chance | +17% VGK | – |
| 4 | P2 15:25 | William Karlsson scored on a snap shot from 10 feetShooting · 21% chance | +16% VGK | – |
| 5 | P2 7:18 | Jordan Staal scored on a snap shot from 33 feetShooting · 8% chance | +21% CAR | – |
| 6 | P3 18:39 | The game turned hereBrett Howden scored on a tip from 6 feetShooting · 11% chance | +23% VGK | – |
| 7 | P3 8:41 | Shayne Gostisbehere scored on a snap shot from 28 feetShooting · 10% chance | +31% CAR | – |
| 8 | P3 3:24 | Tomas Hertl scored on a snap shot from 24 feetShooting · 14% chance | +35% VGK | – |
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
Golden Knights 78% · Hurricanes 22%
- Final margin
- Golden Knights by 1
- Luck in goals
- 0.5 for the Hurricanes
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Golden Knights by 1.5
- Replay with same day's form
- Golden Knights 63% · Hurricanes 37% 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.
All stanley cup final 2025-26 games · Golden Knights · Hurricanes
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- Hurricanes at Golden Knights Jun 7, 2026 · VGK 5–4 OT · replay 51% for the winner
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