2026-27 regular season · October 17, 2026
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Stars at Blackhawks, Oct 17, 2026: who deserved to win?
The Stars beat the Blackhawks 4–0, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Stars win 6 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 16 points of win probability to the Stars.
The biggest swing (P2, 15:02 left): Jason Robertson scored on a wrist shot from 18 feet, worth 17 points of win probability to the Stars.
Final
 Dallas Stars | 4 |
|---|---|
 Chicago Blackhawks | 0 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +41 Stars lucky · −41 Blackhawks
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. Stars win 6, Blackhawks win 4.
- 1 DAL 6 CHI 1
- 2 DAL 4 CHI 1
- 3 DAL 5 CHI 2
- 4 DAL 3 CHI 1
- 5 DAL 4 CHI 3
- 6 DAL 3 CHI 2
- 7 DAL 3 CHI 4
- 8 DAL 1 CHI 2
- 9 DAL 3 CHI 5
- 10 DAL 1 CHI 4
Our prediction before puck drop
We had the Stars by 0.7, 62% to win. The Stars won by 4: the pick was right. The final margin was 3.3 goals from ours; 17% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.
Show as a table
| Outcome | Chance |
|---|---|
| Stars win | 62.1% |
| Blackhawks win | 37.9% |
| Middle 50%: Stars by 3 to Blackhawks by 1 | 50% |
| Middle 90%: Stars by 4 to Blackhawks by 3 | 90% |
| Middle 95%: Stars by 5 to Blackhawks by 4 | 95% |
| Exactly Stars by 1 | 21.9% |
| Exactly Blackhawks by 1 | 17.9% |
| Exactly Stars by 3 | 15.5% |
| Exactly Stars by 2 | 12.3% |
| Exactly Blackhawks by 3 | 8.0% |
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.
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
Stars win 59% of them, Blackhawks 41%. The line is what actually happened: Stars by 4.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Stars by 3+ | 28.1% |
| Stars by 2 | 11.0% |
| Stars by 1 | 19.8% |
| Blackhawks by 1 | 22.1% |
| Blackhawks by 2 | 8.3% |
| Blackhawks by 3+ | 10.6% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Stars | 45 | 4 | 3.15 | +0.85 |
 Blackhawks | 34 | 0 | 2.29 | −2.29 |
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 14:31 | Interference on the Blackhawks (Sam Rinzel): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% DAL |
| P1 6:19 | Holding on the Stars (Justin Hryckowian): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% CHI |
| P1 5:38 | High sticking on the Blackhawks (Roman Kantserov): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% DAL |
| P1 4:45 | Holding on the Stars (Nils Lundkvist): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% CHI |
| P2 16:41 | Tripping on the Blackhawks (Artyom Levshunov): 2 minutes on the power play | +5% DAL |
| P2 8:47 | Cross checking on the Blackhawks (Oliver Moore): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% DAL |
| P2 1:54 | Cross checking on the Stars (Roope Hintz): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% CHI |
| P2 0:53 | Hooking on the Blackhawks (Patrick Kane): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% DAL |
| P3 17:11 | Tripping on the Stars (Tyler Myers): 2 minutes on the power play | +1% CHI |
When it happened
Blackhawks’ chance of winning
As low as 0% and as high as 54%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 6:19 | Holding on the Stars (Justin Hryckowian): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +4% CHI | – |
| 2 | P1 5:38 | High sticking on the Blackhawks (Roman Kantserov): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +4% DAL | – |
| 3 | P1 4:45 | Holding on the Stars (Nils Lundkvist): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +4% CHI | – |
| 4 | P2 16:41 | Tripping on the Blackhawks (Artyom Levshunov): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +5% DAL | – |
| 5 | P2 15:02 | Jason Robertson scored on a wrist shot from 18 feetShooting · 15% chance | +17% DAL | – |
| 6 | P2 8:47 | Cross checking on the Blackhawks (Oliver Moore): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +4% DAL | – |
| 7 | P2 5:50 | Arttu Hyry scored on a wrist shot from 21 feetShooting · 11% chance | +15% DAL | – |
| 8 | P3 18:33 | Arttu Hyry scored on a backhand shot from 25 feetShooting · 6% chance | +6% DAL | – |
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
Stars 80% · Blackhawks 20%
- Final margin
- Stars by 4
- Luck in goals
- 2.3 for the Stars
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Stars by 1.7
- Replay with same day's form
- Stars 59% · Blackhawks 41% 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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