2026-27 regular season · October 17, 2026
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Devils at Capitals, Oct 17, 2026: who deserved to win?
The Capitals beat the Devils 4–2, but the replays lean toward the Devils: they take 6 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 29 points of win probability to the Capitals.
The biggest swing (P1, 9:56 left): Arseny Gritsyuk scored on a snap shot from 51 feet, worth 17 points of win probability to the Devils.
Final
 New Jersey Devils | 2 |
|---|---|
 Washington Capitals | 4 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +63 Capitals very lucky · −63 Devils
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. Devils win 6, Capitals win 4.
- 1 NJD 5 WSH 0
- 2 NJD 5 WSH 2
- 3 NJD 5 WSH 2
- 4 NJD 5 WSH 3
- 5 NJD 2 WSH 1
- 6 NJD 5 WSH 4
- 7 NJD 2 WSH 3
- 8 NJD 1 WSH 2
- 9 NJD 2 WSH 4
- 10 NJD 4 WSH 7
Our prediction before puck drop
We had the Capitals by 0.2, 54% to win. The Capitals won by 2: the pick was right. The final margin was 1.8 goals from ours; 49% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.
Show as a table
| Outcome | Chance |
|---|---|
| Devils win | 45.8% |
| Capitals win | 54.2% |
| Middle 50%: Devils by 2 to Capitals by 2 | 50% |
| Middle 90%: Devils by 4 to Capitals by 4 | 90% |
| Middle 95%: Devils by 4 to Capitals by 5 | 95% |
| Exactly Capitals by 1 | 21.6% |
| Exactly Devils by 1 | 19.5% |
| Exactly Capitals by 3 | 13.0% |
| Exactly Capitals by 2 | 10.3% |
| Exactly Devils by 3 | 10.2% |
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 Sat, Oct 17, 10:03 am 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
Devils win 63% of them, Capitals 37%. The line is what actually happened: Capitals by 2.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Devils by 3+ | 34.1% |
| Devils by 2 | 11.4% |
| Devils by 1 | 17.5% |
| Capitals by 1 | 19.4% |
| Capitals by 2 | 7.3% |
| Capitals by 3+ | 10.3% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Devils | 56 | 2 | 3.84 | −1.84 |
 Capitals | 33 | 4 | 2.37 | +1.63 |
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 16:31 | Cross checking on the Capitals (Alex Tuch): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% NJD |
| P1 11:57 | Illegal check to head on the Capitals (Boone Jenner): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% NJD |
| P1 4:50 | Interference on the Devils (Brett Pesce): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% WSH |
| P2 10:57 | Hooking on the Devils (Luke Hughes): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% WSH |
| P3 8:22 | Tripping on the Capitals (Timothy Liljegren): 2 minutes on the power play | 0% NJD |
| P3 1:34 | Holding on the Capitals (Timothy Liljegren): 2 minutes on the power play | 0% NJD |
When it happened
Capitals’ chance of winning
As low as 35% and as high as 100%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 16:31 | Cross checking on the Capitals (Alex Tuch): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +4% NJD | – |
| 2 | P1 11:57 | Illegal check to head on the Capitals (Boone Jenner): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +4% NJD | – |
| 3 | P1 9:56 | Arseny Gritsyuk scored on a snap shot from 51 feetShooting · 1% chance | +17% NJD | – |
| 4 | P1 4:50 | Interference on the Devils (Brett Pesce): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +4% WSH | – |
| 5 | P1 3:18 | Ryan Leonard scored on a wrist shot from 5 feetShooting · 25% chance | +14% WSH | – |
| 6 | P2 18:44 | Ilya Protas scored on a snap shot from 28 feetShooting · 10% chance | +17% WSH | – |
| 7 | P2 15:24 | Dylan Strome scored on a backhand shot from 8 feetShooting · 7% chance | +13% WSH | – |
| 8 | P2 8:46 | Boone Jenner scored on a snap shot from 9 feetShooting · 20% 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
Devils 58% · Capitals 42%
- Final margin
- Capitals by 2
- Luck in goals
- 2.6 for the Capitals
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Devils by 0.6
- Replay with same day's form
- Devils 63% · Capitals 37% 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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