2026-27 regular season · October 13, 2026
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Capitals at Hurricanes, Oct 13, 2026: who deserved to win?
The Hurricanes beat the Capitals 4–2, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Hurricanes win 6 of 10.
The biggest swing (P3, 6:04 left): Andrei Svechnikov scored on a backhand shot from 8 feet, worth 32 points of win probability to the Hurricanes.
Final
 Washington Capitals | 2 |
|---|---|
 Carolina Hurricanes | 4 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +40 Hurricanes lucky · −40 Capitals
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. Capitals win 4, Hurricanes win 6.
- 1 WSH 4 CAR 1
- 2 WSH 4 CAR 2
- 3 WSH 5 CAR 4
- 4 WSH 2 CAR 1
- 5 WSH 2 CAR 3
- 6 WSH 3 CAR 4
- 7 WSH 3 CAR 5
- 8 WSH 1 CAR 4
- 9 WSH 4 CAR 7
- 10 WSH 0 CAR 5
Our prediction before puck drop
We had the Hurricanes by 0.7, 61% to win. The Hurricanes won by 2: the pick was right. The final margin was 1.3 goals from ours; 66% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.
Show as a table
| Outcome | Chance |
|---|---|
| Capitals win | 38.8% |
| Hurricanes win | 61.2% |
| Middle 50%: Capitals by 1 to Hurricanes by 3 | 50% |
| Middle 90%: Capitals by 3 to Hurricanes by 4 | 90% |
| Middle 95%: Capitals by 4 to Hurricanes by 5 | 95% |
| Exactly Hurricanes by 1 | 22.3% |
| Exactly Capitals by 1 | 17.8% |
| Exactly Hurricanes by 3 | 15.4% |
| Exactly Hurricanes by 2 | 11.4% |
| Exactly Capitals by 3 | 8.2% |
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 Tue, Oct 13, 1:55 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
Capitals win 40% of them, Hurricanes 60%. The line is what actually happened: Hurricanes by 2.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Capitals by 3+ | 12.4% |
| Capitals by 2 | 8.4% |
| Capitals by 1 | 19.3% |
| Hurricanes by 1 | 20.9% |
| Hurricanes by 2 | 12.7% |
| Hurricanes by 3+ | 26.4% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Capitals | 33 | 2 | 2.61 | −0.61 |
 Hurricanes | 53 | 3 | 3.16 | −0.16 |
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 2:33 | Cross checking on the Hurricanes (Nicolas Deslauriers): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% WSH |
| P1 0:47 | Unsportsmanlike conduct on the Hurricanes (Andrei Svechnikov): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% WSH |
| P2 16:02 | Delaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Capitals (WSH): 2 minutes on the power play | +5% CAR |
| P2 9:15 | Delaying game puck over glass on the Capitals (Cole Hutson): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% CAR |
| P2 0:35 | Hooking on the Capitals (Jakob Chychrun): 2 minutes on the power play | +6% CAR |
| P3 12:48 | Slashing on the Capitals (Ryan Leonard): 2 minutes on the power play | +7% CAR |
| P3 6:11 | Tripping on the Capitals (Justin Sourdif): 2 minutes on the power play | +8% CAR |
When it happened
Hurricanes’ chance of winning
As low as 28% and as high as 100%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 10:34 | Boone Jenner scored on a snap shot from 12 feetShooting · 9% chance | +16% WSH | – |
| 2 | P2 16:02 | Andrei Svechnikov scored on a poke shot from 3 feetShooting · 22% chanceDelaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Capitals (WSH): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +20% CAR | – |
| 3 | P2 13:21 | Justin Holl scored on a snap shot from 36 feetShooting · 7% chance | +19% WSH | – |
| 4 | P2 1:11 | Eric Robinson scored on a snap shot from 23 feetShooting · 5% chance | +24% CAR | – |
| 5 | P3 12:48 | Slashing on the Capitals (Ryan Leonard): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +7% CAR | – |
| 6 | P3 11:27 | Eric Robinson’s snap shot from 11 feet was savedShooting · 23% chance | +7% WSH | – |
| 7 | P3 6:11 | Tripping on the Capitals (Justin Sourdif): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +8% CAR | – |
| 8 | P3 6:04 | Andrei Svechnikov scored on a backhand shot from 8 feetShooting · 12% chance | +32% CAR | – |
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
Capitals 21% · Hurricanes 79%
- Final margin
- Hurricanes by 2
- Luck in goals
- 0.7 for the Hurricanes
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Hurricanes by 1.3
- Replay with same day's form
- Capitals 40% · Hurricanes 60% 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 3, 2026-27
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