luckadjusted
NHL Week 6 · 2026-27

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)

San Jose Sharks 3
St. Louis Blues 2

October 8, 2026 · Enterprise Center

Our prediction before puck drop: Blues by 0.6

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. 1 SJS 5 STL 2
  2. 2 SJS 5 STL 3
  3. 3 SJS 4 STL 3
  4. 4 SJS 2 STL 1
  5. 5 SJS 1 STL 2
  6. 6 SJS 1 STL 2
  7. 7 SJS 0 STL 2
  8. 8 SJS 0 STL 2
  9. 9 SJS 4 STL 7
  10. 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
OutcomeChance
Sharks win40.1%
Blues win59.9%
Middle 50%: Sharks by 1 to Blues by 350%
Middle 90%: Sharks by 4 to Blues by 490%
Middle 95%: Sharks by 4 to Blues by 595%
Exactly Blues by 122.2%
Exactly Sharks by 118.1%
Exactly Blues by 314.9%
Exactly Blues by 211.2%
Exactly Sharks by 38.6%

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.

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 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 replaysShare of replays
Sharks by 3+10.2%
Sharks by 28.0%
Sharks by 120.6%
Blues by 122.3%
Blues by 212.6%
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.

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 +1.7 goals to the Sharks: the final margin was Sharks by 1, without the luck Blues by 0.7. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Sharks3722.10−0.10
Blues3922.98−0.98

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.

WhenCallWin 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.

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 Blues were ahead in it, below while the Sharks were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext 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
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.

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