luckadjusted
NHL Week 6 · 2026-27

2026-27 regular season · October 17, 2026 · SO

No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.

Sharks at Red Wings, Oct 17, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Red Wings beat the Sharks 4–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Red Wings win 4 of 10. Luck ran their way: shootout alone was worth 51 points of win probability to the Red Wings.

The biggest swing (SO): the Red Wings won the shootout, worth 51 points of win probability to the Red Wings.

Final (SO)

San Jose Sharks 3
Detroit Red Wings 4

October 17, 2026 · Little Caesars Arena

Our prediction before puck drop: Red Wings by 0.6

Luck index +59 Red Wings lucky · −59 Sharks

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. Sharks win 6, Red Wings win 4.

  1. 1 SJS 6 DET 1
  2. 2 SJS 4 DET 1
  3. 3 SJS 7 DET 4
  4. 4 SJS 3 DET 1
  5. 5 SJS 3 DET 2
  6. 6 SJS 2 DET 1
  7. 7 SJS 2 DET 3
  8. 8 SJS 2 DET 3
  9. 9 SJS 4 DET 6
  10. 10 SJS 3 DET 6

Our prediction before puck drop

We had the Red Wings by 0.6, 60% to win. The Red Wings won by 1: the pick was right. The final margin was 0.4 goals from ours; 78% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.

Show as a table
OutcomeChance
Sharks win40.1%
Red Wings win59.9%
Middle 50%: Sharks by 1 to Red Wings by 350%
Middle 90%: Sharks by 4 to Red Wings by 490%
Middle 95%: Sharks by 4 to Red Wings by 595%
Exactly Red Wings by 122.2%
Exactly Sharks by 118.1%
Exactly Red Wings by 314.9%
Exactly Red Wings by 211.2%
Exactly Sharks by 38.5%

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 Sat, Oct 17, 6:42 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.

No closing line for this game.

Needs the closing line, which this game has not got.

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

Sharks win 59% of them, Red Wings 41%. The line is what actually happened: Red Wings by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Sharks by 3+28.4%
Sharks by 210.9%
Sharks by 119.4%
Red Wings by 119.7%
Red Wings by 28.5%
Red Wings by 3+13.1%

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.

Swings add up across a game, so in one that went back and forth they can pass 100%. On the scoreboard the same luck was worth +1.4 goals to the Red Wings: the final margin was Red Wings by 1, without the luck Sharks by 0.4. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Sharks5133.40−0.40
Red Wings4132.89+0.11

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.

WhenCallWin probability for
P1 11:44 High sticking on the Red Wings (Emmitt Finnie): 2 minutes on the power play +4% SJS
P1 9:00 Interference on the Sharks (Mason Marchment): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DET
P1 2:23 Holding the stick on the Red Wings (Ben Chiarot): 2 minutes on the power play +4% SJS
P2 12:12 Tripping on the Red Wings (Anton Johansson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% SJS
P2 6:29 Hooking on the Sharks (Mason Marchment): 2 minutes on the power play +5% DET
P2 4:31 Roughing on the Sharks (Jacob Trouba): 2 minutes on the power play +5% DET
P2 2:24 Holding on the Red Wings (Justin Faulk): 2 minutes on the power play +5% SJS
P3 18:14 Tripping on the Red Wings (Andreas Englund): 2 minutes on the power play +5% SJS
P3 13:29 Holding the stick on the Sharks (Nolan Allan): 2 minutes on the power play +5% DET
OT 2:28 Holding on the Red Wings (Andrew Copp): 2 minutes on the power play +12% SJS

When it happened

Red Wings’ chance of winning

As low as 8% and as high as 100%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.

Our in-game win probability: the score and the time left, starting from the betting line (or the home edge alone when there is none), with goals at the league’s rates for the score. Overtime is drawn at a fixed width. Shaded above the middle while the Red Wings were ahead in it, below while the Sharks were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 7:13 Justin Faulk scored on a snap shot from 58 feetShooting · 3% chance +17% DET –
2 P1 2:01 Dmitry Orlov scored on a slap shot from 54 feetShooting · 3% chance +17% SJS –
3 P2 15:05 Macklin Celebrini scored on a slap shot from 30 feetShooting · 13% chance +18% SJS –
4 P3 17:12 Ivar Stenberg scored on a wrist shot from 13 feetShooting · 17% chance +14% SJS –
5 P3 15:00 Emmitt Finnie scored on a tip from 6 feetShooting · 7% chance +15% DET –
6 P3 1:33 Alex DeBrincat scored on a snap shot from 6 feetShooting · 20% chance +35% DET –
7 SO The Red Wings won the shootoutShootout · shootouts are close to coin flips +51% DET –
8 OT 2:28 Holding on the Red Wings (Andrew Copp): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +12% SJS –

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

Sharks 59% · Red Wings 41%

Final margin
Red Wings by 1
Luck in goals
1.4 for the Red Wings
Luck-adjusted margin
Sharks by 0.4
Replay with same day's form
Sharks 59% · Red Wings 41% unchanged: why
How much of each is luck?

0% treats it as skill, 100% as pure luck. The tick is our fit.

What counts
Flip a play

Force the other outcome, in this game and in every replay: a goal becomes a save, a post goes in, a penalty goes the other way.

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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