2026-27 regular season · October 9, 2026 · SO
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Penguins at Blue Jackets, Oct 9, 2026: who deserved to win?
The Blue Jackets beat the Penguins 3–2, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 7 of 10. The Penguins had the bounces: shooting alone was worth 34 points of win probability to the Penguins.
The biggest swing (SO): the Blue Jackets won the shootout, worth 51 points of win probability to the Blue Jackets.
Final (SO)
 Pittsburgh Penguins | 2 |
|---|---|
 Columbus Blue Jackets | 3 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +26 Blue Jackets lucky · −26 Penguins
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. Penguins win 3, Blue Jackets win 7.
- 1 PIT 6 CBJ 3
- 2 PIT 6 CBJ 5
- 3 PIT 4 CBJ 3
- 4 PIT 5 CBJ 6
- 5 PIT 4 CBJ 5
- 6 PIT 1 CBJ 4
- 7 PIT 1 CBJ 4
- 8 PIT 1 CBJ 5
- 9 PIT 4 CBJ 8
- 10 PIT 1 CBJ 7
Our prediction before puck drop
We had the Penguins by 0.1, 52% to win. The Blue Jackets won by 1, a result we gave 48%. The final margin was 1.1 goals from ours; 59% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.
Show as a table
| Outcome | Chance |
|---|---|
| Penguins win | 51.6% |
| Blue Jackets win | 48.4% |
| Middle 50%: Penguins by 2 to Blue Jackets by 2 | 50% |
| Middle 90%: Penguins by 4 to Blue Jackets by 4 | 90% |
| Middle 95%: Penguins by 5 to Blue Jackets by 4 | 95% |
| Exactly Penguins by 1 | 20.6% |
| Exactly Blue Jackets by 1 | 20.5% |
| Exactly Penguins by 3 | 12.0% |
| Exactly Blue Jackets by 3 | 11.2% |
| Exactly Penguins by 2 | 10.5% |
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 Fri, Oct 9, 1:19 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
Penguins win 26% of them, Blue Jackets 74%. The line is what actually happened: Blue Jackets by 1.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Penguins by 3+ | 5.8% |
| Penguins by 2 | 4.6% |
| Penguins by 1 | 15.3% |
| Blue Jackets by 1 | 16.1% |
| Blue Jackets by 2 | 11.2% |
| Blue Jackets by 3+ | 47.0% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Penguins | 30 | 2 | 2.28 | −0.28 |
 Blue Jackets | 58 | 2 | 4.14 | −2.14 |
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 18:23 | Slashing on the Blue Jackets (Adam Fantilli): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% PIT |
| P1 16:41 | Tripping on the Penguins (Bryan Rust): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% CBJ |
| P1 12:36 | Cross checking on the Blue Jackets (Emil Andrae): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% PIT |
| P1 0:47 | Hooking on the Penguins (Kris Letang): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% CBJ |
| P2 16:19 | Tripping on the Penguins (Samuel Girard): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% CBJ |
| P3 4:07 | Tripping on the Penguins (Ville Koivunen): 2 minutes on the power play | +9% CBJ |
When it happened
Blue Jackets’ chance of winning
Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 9:08 | Damon Severson scored on a snap shot from 19 feetShooting · 12% chance | +15% CBJ | – |
| 2 | P2 8:20 | Mathieu Olivier scored on a snap shot from 28 feetShooting · 11% chance | +13% CBJ | – |
| 3 | P2 5:30 | Bryan Rust scored on a snap shot from 3 feetShooting · 57% chance | +6% PIT | – |
| 4 | P3 16:41 | Evgeni Malkin scored on a deflected shot from 6 feetShooting · 5% chance | +25% PIT | – |
| 5 | P3 8:58 | Declan Carlile’s snap shot from 20 feet was savedShooting · 15% chance | +5% CBJ | – |
| 6 | P3 4:07 | Tripping on the Penguins (Ville Koivunen): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +9% CBJ | – |
| 7 | P3 3:27 | Charlie Coyle’s snap shot from 16 feet was savedShooting · 24% chance | +9% PIT | – |
| 8 | SO | The Blue Jackets won the shootoutShootout · shootouts are close to coin flips | +51% CBJ | – |
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
Penguins 20% · Blue Jackets 80%
- Final margin
- Blue Jackets by 1
- Luck in goals
- 0.4 for the Penguins
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Blue Jackets by 1.4
- Replay with same day's form
- Penguins 26% · Blue Jackets 74% 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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