2026-27 regular season · October 9, 2026
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Rangers at Capitals, Oct 9, 2026: who deserved to win?
The Capitals beat the Rangers 3–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Capitals win 6 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 36 points of win probability to the Capitals.
The biggest swing (P2, 2:22 left): Boone Jenner scored on a snap shot from 27 feet, worth 21 points of win probability to the Capitals.
Final
 New York Rangers | 1 |
|---|---|
 Washington Capitals | 3 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +41 Capitals lucky · −41 Rangers
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. Rangers win 4, Capitals win 6.
- 1 NYR 5 WSH 2
- 2 NYR 3 WSH 1
- 3 NYR 1 WSH 0
- 4 NYR 3 WSH 2
- 5 NYR 3 WSH 4
- 6 NYR 1 WSH 2
- 7 NYR 2 WSH 4
- 8 NYR 1 WSH 4
- 9 NYR 1 WSH 4
- 10 NYR 1 WSH 6
Our prediction before puck drop
We had the Capitals by 0.3, 56% to win. The Capitals won by 2: the pick was right. The final margin was 1.7 goals from ours; 48% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.
Show as a table
| Outcome | Chance |
|---|---|
| Rangers win | 44.2% |
| Capitals win | 55.8% |
| Middle 50%: Rangers by 2 to Capitals by 2 | 50% |
| Middle 90%: Rangers by 4 to Capitals by 4 | 90% |
| Middle 95%: Rangers by 4 to Capitals by 5 | 95% |
| Exactly Capitals by 1 | 21.8% |
| Exactly Rangers by 1 | 19.1% |
| Exactly Capitals by 3 | 13.6% |
| Exactly Capitals by 2 | 10.6% |
| Exactly Rangers by 3 | 9.7% |
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 4,000.2 replays ended
Rangers win 41% of them, Capitals 59%. The line is what actually happened: Capitals by 2.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Rangers by 3+ | 12.5% |
| Rangers by 2 | 7.2% |
| Rangers by 1 | 20.8% |
| Capitals by 1 | 21.5% |
| Capitals by 2 | 10.7% |
| Capitals by 3+ | 27.2% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Rangers | 36 | 1 | 2.65 | −1.65 |
 Capitals | 40 | 2 | 3.20 | −1.20 |
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 18:24 | Tripping on the Capitals (Ryan Leonard): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% NYR |
| P1 10:36 | Tripping on the Capitals (Dylan McIlrath): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% NYR |
| P1 3:55 | Hooking on the Rangers (Cole Beaudoin): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% WSH |
| P2 13:10 | High sticking on the Rangers (J.T. Miller): 2 minutes on the power play | +5% WSH |
| P2 2:03 | High sticking on the Capitals (Boone Jenner): 2 minutes on the power play | +5% NYR |
| P3 15:29 | Hooking on the Rangers (Adam Fox): 2 minutes on the power play | +5% WSH |
When it happened
Capitals’ chance of winning
As low as 33% and as high as 100%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 9:43 | Alexis Lafrenière scored on a snap shot from 33 feetShooting · 12% chance | +15% NYR | – |
| 2 | P2 13:52 | Timothy Liljegren scored on a slap shot from 59 feetShooting · 2% chance | +20% WSH | – |
| 3 | P2 13:10 | High sticking on the Rangers (J.T. Miller): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +5% WSH | – |
| 4 | P2 2:22 | Boone Jenner scored on a snap shot from 27 feetShooting · 12% chance | +21% WSH | – |
| 5 | P2 2:03 | High sticking on the Capitals (Boone Jenner): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +4% NYR | – |
| 6 | P3 15:29 | Hooking on the Rangers (Adam Fox): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +5% WSH | – |
| 7 | P3 9:22 | Gabe Perreault’s snap shot from 16 feet was savedShooting · 18% chance | +6% WSH | – |
| 8 | P3 1:39 | Pavel Dorofeyev missed the net with a snap shot from 27 feetShooting · 15% chance | +6% WSH | – |
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
Rangers 17% · Capitals 83%
- Final margin
- Capitals by 2
- Luck in goals
- 0.2 for the Capitals
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Capitals by 1.8
- Replay with same day's form
- Rangers 41% · Capitals 59% 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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