2026-27 regular season · October 5, 2026
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Senators at Bruins, Oct 5, 2026: who deserved to win?
The Senators beat the Bruins 4–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Senators win 4 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 22 points of win probability to the Senators.
The biggest swing (P1, 12:21 left): Tim Stützle scored on a snap shot from 25 feet, worth 14 points of win probability to the Senators.
Final
 Ottawa Senators | 4 |
|---|---|
 Boston Bruins | 1 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +57 Senators lucky · −57 Bruins
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. Senators win 4, Bruins win 6.
- 1 OTT 5 BOS 2
- 2 OTT 3 BOS 1
- 3 OTT 4 BOS 3
- 4 OTT 2 BOS 1
- 5 OTT 1 BOS 2
- 6 OTT 3 BOS 4
- 7 OTT 2 BOS 3
- 8 OTT 1 BOS 3
- 9 OTT 2 BOS 5
- 10 OTT 2 BOS 6
Our prediction before puck drop
We had the Senators by 0.1, 52% to win. The Senators won by 3: the pick was right. The final margin was 2.9 goals from ours; 27% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.
Show as a table
| Outcome | Chance |
|---|---|
| Senators win | 52.3% |
| Bruins win | 47.7% |
| Middle 50%: Senators by 2 to Bruins by 2 | 50% |
| Middle 90%: Senators by 4 to Bruins by 4 | 90% |
| Middle 95%: Senators by 5 to Bruins by 4 | 95% |
| Exactly Senators by 1 | 20.8% |
| Exactly Bruins by 1 | 20.4% |
| Exactly Senators by 3 | 12.3% |
| Exactly Bruins by 3 | 11.0% |
| Exactly Senators by 2 | 10.6% |
Most of the distance between a forecast and a final score is luck: a hot goalie, a post or a deflection moves a hockey score more than anything known before the game. Made Mon, Oct 5, 6:54 pm ET and frozen at puck drop. How our predictions have done
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 4,000.1 replays ended
Senators win 43% of them, Bruins 57%. The line is what actually happened: Senators by 3.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Senators by 3+ | 11.6% |
| Senators by 2 | 9.7% |
| Senators by 1 | 22.1% |
| Bruins by 1 | 23.9% |
| Bruins by 2 | 11.3% |
| Bruins by 3+ | 21.3% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Senators | 37 | 4 | 2.04 | +1.96 |
 Bruins | 33 | 1 | 2.51 | −1.51 |
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 12:41 | Interference on the Senators (Warren Foegele): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% BOS |
| P1 6:27 | Hooking on the Senators (Hayden Hodgson): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% BOS |
| P1 4:45 | Slashing on the Bruins (James Hagens): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% OTT |
| P1 4:38 | Tripping on the Bruins (Matthew Poitras): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% OTT |
| P2 12:02 | Interference on the Senators (Nikolas Matinpalo): 2 minutes on the power play | +1% BOS |
| P2 11:58 | Interference on the Bruins (Elias Lindholm): 2 minutes on the power play | +1% OTT |
| P2 4:24 | Tripping on the Senators (Thomas Chabot): 2 minutes on the power play | 0% BOS |
| P3 0:04 | Interference on the Bruins (Nikita Zadorov): 2 minutes on the power play | 0% OTT |
When it happened
Bruins’ 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 19:14 | Elias Lindholm’s between-the-legs shot from 9 feet was savedShooting · 25% chance | +4% OTT | – |
| 2 | P1 12:41 | Interference on the Senators (Warren Foegele): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +4% BOS | – |
| 3 | P1 12:21 | Tim Stützle scored on a snap shot from 25 feetShooting · 17% chance | +14% OTT | – |
| 4 | P1 10:38 | Tim Stützle scored on a snap shot from 10 feetShooting · 10% chance | +13% OTT | – |
| 5 | P1 6:27 | Hooking on the Senators (Hayden Hodgson): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +3% BOS | – |
| 6 | P1 4:45 | Slashing on the Bruins (James Hagens): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +3% OTT | – |
| 7 | P2 18:54 | Drake Batherson scored on a backhand shot from 5 feetShooting · 13% chance | +9% OTT | – |
| 8 | P2 14:41 | Michael Amadio scored on a snap shot from 15 feetShooting · 18% chance | +4% OTT | – |
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
Senators 61% · Bruins 39%
- Final margin
- Senators by 3
- Luck in goals
- 2.6 for the Senators
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Senators by 0.4
- Replay with same day's form
- Senators 43% · Bruins 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.
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