Stanley Cup Final 2025-26 · June 10, 2026
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Hurricanes at Golden Knights, Game 4, Stanley Cup Final 2025-26: who deserved to win?
The Hurricanes beat the Golden Knights 5–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Hurricanes win 4 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 31 points of win probability to the Hurricanes.
The biggest swing (P3, 13:28 left): Jordan Staal scored on a backhand shot from 12 feet, worth 28 points of win probability to the Hurricanes.
Final
 Carolina Hurricanes | 5 |
|---|---|
 Vegas Golden Knights | 3 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +57 Hurricanes lucky · −57 Golden Knights
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. Hurricanes win 4, Golden Knights win 6.
- 1 CAR 6 VGK 3
- 2 CAR 3 VGK 1
- 3 CAR 4 VGK 3
- 4 CAR 2 VGK 1
- 5 CAR 0 VGK 1
- 6 CAR 2 VGK 3
- 7 CAR 2 VGK 3
- 8 CAR 2 VGK 4
- 9 CAR 0 VGK 3
- 10 CAR 3 VGK 7
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
Hurricanes win 43% of them, Golden Knights 57%. The line is what actually happened: Hurricanes by 2.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Hurricanes by 3+ | 13.1% |
| Hurricanes by 2 | 8.5% |
| Hurricanes by 1 | 21.1% |
| Golden Knights by 1 | 22.9% |
| Golden Knights by 2 | 11.1% |
| Golden Knights by 3+ | 23.3% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Hurricanes | 39 | 4 | 2.11 | +1.89 |
 Golden Knights | 36 | 3 | 2.88 | +0.12 |
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 18:36 | Tripping on the Golden Knights (Shea Theodore): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% CAR |
| P1 7:33 | Too many men on the ice on the Golden Knights (VGK): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% CAR |
| P1 2:28 | Slashing on the Hurricanes (Taylor Hall): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% VGK |
| P2 8:30 | Cross checking on the Golden Knights (Nic Dowd): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% CAR |
| P2 5:40 | Interference on the Hurricanes (Jordan Martinook): 2 minutes on the power play | +5% VGK |
| P3 18:18 | Tripping on the Hurricanes (K'Andre Miller): 2 minutes on the power play | +6% VGK |
When it happened
Golden Knights’ chance of winning
As low as 0% and as high as 54%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 18:54 | Logan Stankoven scored on a backhand shot from 9 feetShooting · 10% chance | +14% CAR | – |
| 2 | P1 16:32 | Jackson Blake scored on a wrist shot from 13 feetShooting · 6% chance | +14% CAR | – |
| 3 | P1 12:38 | Mark Stone scored on a wrist shot from 7 feetShooting · 16% chance | +12% VGK | – |
| 4 | P1 7:12 | Jordan Staal scored on a wrist shot from 7 feetShooting · 24% chance | +11% CAR | – |
| 5 | P2 15:38 | William Karlsson scored on a snap shot from 24 feetShooting · 10% chance | +14% VGK | – |
| 6 | P2 2:52 | Brett Howden scored on a wrist shot from 33 feetShooting · 4% chance | +23% VGK | – |
| 7 | P3 13:28 | Jordan Staal scored on a backhand shot from 12 feetShooting · 7% chance | +28% CAR | – |
| 8 | P3 1:58 | Jack Eichel wrist, 21 ft: above crossbar (15% chance)Shooting | +7% CAR | – |
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
Hurricanes 49% · Golden Knights 51%
- Final margin
- Hurricanes by 2
- Luck in goals
- 2.0 for the Hurricanes
- Luck-adjusted margin
- even
- Replay with same day's form
- Hurricanes 43% · Golden Knights 57% 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 · Hurricanes · Golden Knights
More from stanley cup final, 2025-26
- Golden Knights at Hurricanes Jun 12, 2026 · CAR 4–2 · replay 43% for the winner
- Hurricanes at Golden Knights Jun 15, 2026 · CAR 3–0 · replay 45% for the winner
- Hurricanes at Golden Knights Jun 7, 2026 · VGK 5–4 OT · replay 51% for the winner
- Golden Knights at Hurricanes Jun 5, 2026 · CAR 4–3 OT · replay 53% for the winner
- Golden Knights at Hurricanes Jun 3, 2026 · VGK 5–4 · replay 63% for the winner