2026-27 regular season · October 8, 2026 · OT
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Sharks at Blues, Oct 8, 2026: who deserved to win?
The Sharks beat the Blues 3–2, but the replays lean toward the Blues: they take 6 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: overtime alone was worth 51 points of win probability to the Sharks.
The game turned on a luck play (OT): the Sharks won in overtime, worth 51 points of win probability to the Sharks.
Final (OT)
| 3 | |
| 2 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +61 Sharks very lucky · −61 Blues
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. Sharks win 4, Blues win 6.
- 1 SJS 5 STL 2
- 2 SJS 5 STL 3
- 3 SJS 4 STL 3
- 4 SJS 2 STL 1
- 5 SJS 1 STL 2
- 6 SJS 1 STL 2
- 7 SJS 0 STL 2
- 8 SJS 0 STL 2
- 9 SJS 4 STL 7
- 10 SJS 1 STL 6
Our prediction before puck drop
We had the Blues by 0.6, 60% to win. The Sharks won by 1, a result we gave 40%. The final margin was 1.6 goals from ours; 48% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.
Show as a table
| Outcome | Chance |
|---|---|
| Sharks win | 40.1% |
| Blues win | 59.9% |
| Middle 50%: Sharks by 1 to Blues by 3 | 50% |
| Middle 90%: Sharks by 4 to Blues by 4 | 90% |
| Middle 95%: Sharks by 4 to Blues by 5 | 95% |
| Exactly Blues by 1 | 22.2% |
| Exactly Sharks by 1 | 18.1% |
| Exactly Blues by 3 | 14.9% |
| Exactly Blues by 2 | 11.2% |
| Exactly Sharks by 3 | 8.6% |
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 Thu, Oct 8, 1:43 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 replays ended
Sharks win 39% of them, Blues 61%. The line is what actually happened: Sharks by 1.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Sharks by 3+ | 10.2% |
| Sharks by 2 | 8.0% |
| Sharks by 1 | 20.6% |
| Blues by 1 | 22.3% |
| Blues by 2 | 12.6% |
| Blues by 3+ | 26.3% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 37 | 2 | 2.10 | −0.10 | |
| 39 | 2 | 2.98 | −0.98 |
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 12:32 | Cross checking on the Sharks (Michael Kesselring): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% STL |
| P1 9:30 | Tripping on the Blues (Adam Jiricek): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% SJS |
| P2 13:21 | Tripping on the Blues (Joel Hofer): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% SJS |
| P2 5:39 | Slashing on the Blues (Cam Fowler): 2 minutes on the power play | +5% SJS |
| P2 3:46 | Slashing on the Sharks (Ivar Stenberg): 2 minutes on the power play | +5% STL |
| P2 0:05 | Delaying game puck over glass on the Blues (Brandon Carlo): 2 minutes on the power play | +6% SJS |
When it happened
Blues’ chance of winning
As low as 0% and as high as 79%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 16:08 | Connor McMichael scored on a tip from 9 feetShooting · 8% chance | +14% STL | – |
| 2 | P2 11:12 | Tyler Toffoli scored on a wrist shot from 8 feetShooting · 10% chance | +19% SJS | – |
| 3 | P2 3:46 | Slashing on the Sharks (Ivar Stenberg): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +5% STL | – |
| 4 | P2 0:05 | Delaying game puck over glass on the Blues (Brandon Carlo): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +6% SJS | – |
| 5 | P3 18:21 | Dillon Dube scored on a wrist shot from 27 feetShooting · 7% chance | +24% STL | – |
| 6 | P3 13:55 | Collin Graf scored on a snap shot from 16 feetShooting · 19% chance | +23% SJS | – |
| 7 | P3 4:28 | Robert Thomas hit the left post with a wrist shot from 40 feetShooting · 4% chanceJimmy Snuggerud missed the net with a bat shot from 7 feetShooting · 13% chance | +7% SJS | – |
| 8 | OT | The game turned hereThe Sharks won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip | +51% SJS | – |
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
Sharks 34% · Blues 66%
- Final margin
- Sharks by 1
- Luck in goals
- 1.7 for the Sharks
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Blues by 0.7
- Replay with same day's form
- Sharks 39% · Blues 61% 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 week 2, 2026-27
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