2026-27 regular season · October 8, 2026
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Wild at Lightning, Oct 8, 2026: who deserved to win?
The Lightning beat the Wild 3–2, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 6 of 10.
The biggest swing (P1, 14:34 left): Anthony Cirelli scored on a tip from 20 feet, worth 15 points of win probability to the Lightning.
Final
 Minnesota Wild | 2 |
|---|---|
 Tampa Bay Lightning | 3 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +36 Lightning lucky · −36 Wild
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. Wild win 4, Lightning win 6.
- 1 MIN 5 TBL 2
- 2 MIN 3 TBL 1
- 3 MIN 2 TBL 1
- 4 MIN 3 TBL 2
- 5 MIN 2 TBL 3
- 6 MIN 1 TBL 2
- 7 MIN 4 TBL 6
- 8 MIN 4 TBL 7
- 9 MIN 1 TBL 4
- 10 MIN 2 TBL 7
Our prediction before puck drop
We had the Lightning by 0.1, 52% to win. The Lightning won by 1: the pick was right. The final margin was 0.9 goals from ours; 79% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.
Show as a table
| Outcome | Chance |
|---|---|
| Wild win | 47.7% |
| Lightning win | 52.3% |
| Middle 50%: Wild by 2 to Lightning by 2 | 50% |
| Middle 90%: Wild by 4 to Lightning by 4 | 90% |
| Middle 95%: Wild by 4 to Lightning by 5 | 95% |
| Exactly Lightning by 1 | 21.3% |
| Exactly Wild by 1 | 19.9% |
| Exactly Lightning by 3 | 12.4% |
| Exactly Wild by 3 | 10.8% |
| Exactly Lightning by 2 | 10.0% |
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 4,000.1 replays ended
Wild win 36% of them, Lightning 64%. The line is what actually happened: Lightning by 1.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Wild by 3+ | 9.7% |
| Wild by 2 | 7.1% |
| Wild by 1 | 18.8% |
| Lightning by 1 | 20.0% |
| Lightning by 2 | 11.2% |
| Lightning by 3+ | 33.3% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Wild | 47 | 2 | 2.80 | −0.80 |
 Lightning | 50 | 3 | 3.48 | −0.48 |
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 7:26 | Interference on the Wild (Jonas Brodin): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% TBL |
| P2 15:58 | Holding on the Wild (Michael McCarron): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% TBL |
| P2 11:49 | Hooking on the Lightning (Max Crozier): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% MIN |
| P2 7:33 | High sticking on the Lightning (Pontus Holmberg): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% MIN |
| P2 5:08 | Holding on the Wild (Zach Bogosian): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% TBL |
When it happened
Lightning’ chance of winning
Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 14:34 | Anthony Cirelli scored on a tip from 20 feetShooting · 9% chance | +15% TBL | – |
| 2 | P1 13:58 | John Carlson scored on a wrist shot from 58 feetShooting · 1% chance | +13% TBL | – |
| 3 | P2 17:28 | Quinn Hughes scored on a wrist shot from 55 feetShooting · 2% chance | +14% MIN | – |
| 4 | P2 15:05 | John Carlson scored on a slap shot from 37 feetShooting · 10% chance | +13% TBL | – |
| 5 | P2 5:59 | Blake Coleman scored on a wrist shot from 30 feetShooting · 5% chance | +14% MIN | – |
| 6 | P2 5:08 | Holding on the Wild (Zach Bogosian): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +4% TBL | – |
| 7 | P3 0:19 | Maxim Shabanov’s snap shot from 14 feet was savedShooting · 20% chance | +10% TBL | – |
| 8 | P3 0:18 | Joel Eriksson Ek’s bat shot from 6 feet was savedShooting · 18% chance | +9% TBL | – |
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
Wild 38% · Lightning 62%
- Final margin
- Lightning by 1
- Luck in goals
- 0.2 for the Lightning
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Lightning by 0.8
- Replay with same day's form
- Wild 36% · Lightning 64% 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
- Mammoth at Bruins Oct 8, 2026 · BOS 6–1 · replay 27% for the winner
- Predators at Canadiens Oct 8, 2026 · NSH 5–2 · replay 34% for the winner
- Maple Leafs at Avalanche Oct 10, 2026 · TOR 6–3 · replay 35% for the winner
- Blues at Blackhawks Oct 6, 2026 · CHI 4–2 · replay 38% for the winner
- Sharks at Blues Oct 8, 2026 · SJS 3–2 OT · replay 39% for the winner
- Avalanche at Jets Oct 7, 2026 · WPG 3–2 · replay 39% for the winner
- Senators at Bruins Oct 5, 2026 · OTT 4–1 · replay 43% for the winner
- Stars at Sabres Oct 8, 2026 · DAL 4–0 · replay 44% for the winner
- Kraken at Red Wings Oct 9, 2026 · SEA 6–3 · replay 46% for the winner
- Flyers at Senators Oct 8, 2026 · OTT 2–1 · replay 46% for the winner
- Jets at Penguins Oct 5, 2026 · WPG 3–2 · replay 46% for the winner
- Avalanche at Flames Oct 8, 2026 · COL 7–3 · replay 49% for the winner