luckadjusted
NHL Week 6 · 2026-27

2026-27 regular season · October 20, 2026

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

Kings at Capitals, Oct 20, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Kings beat the Capitals 5–2, but the replays lean toward the Capitals: they take 7 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 40 points of win probability to the Kings.

The biggest swing (P3, 12:32 left): Erik Gustafsson scored on a snap shot from 7 feet, worth 24 points of win probability to the Kings.

Final

Los Angeles Kings 5
Washington Capitals 2

October 20, 2026 · Capital One Arena

Our prediction before puck drop: Capitals by 0.3

Luck index +68 Kings very lucky · −68 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. Kings win 3, Capitals win 7.

  1. 1 LAK 6 WSH 3
  2. 2 LAK 2 WSH 1
  3. 3 LAK 5 WSH 4
  4. 4 LAK 4 WSH 5
  5. 5 LAK 4 WSH 5
  6. 6 LAK 4 WSH 6
  7. 7 LAK 3 WSH 6
  8. 8 LAK 3 WSH 6
  9. 9 LAK 1 WSH 5
  10. 10 LAK 3 WSH 9

Our prediction before puck drop

We had the Capitals by 0.3, 56% to win. The Kings won by 3, a result we gave 44%. The final margin was 3.3 goals from ours; 16% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.

Show as a table
OutcomeChance
Kings win44.4%
Capitals win55.6%
Middle 50%: Kings by 2 to Capitals by 250%
Middle 90%: Kings by 4 to Capitals by 490%
Middle 95%: Kings by 4 to Capitals by 595%
Exactly Capitals by 121.8%
Exactly Kings by 119.2%
Exactly Capitals by 313.5%
Exactly Capitals by 210.5%
Exactly Kings by 39.8%

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 20, 11:27 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.

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 3,999.9 replays ended

Kings win 32% of them, Capitals 68%. The line is what actually happened: Kings by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Kings by 3+8.7%
Kings by 25.9%
Kings by 117.2%
Capitals by 117.0%
Capitals by 210.6%
Capitals by 3+40.6%

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.

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 +3.4 goals to the Kings: the final margin was Kings by 3, without the luck Capitals by 0.4. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Kings3242.49+1.51
Capitals4824.39−2.39

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 2:55 Slashing on the Kings (Scott Laughton): 2 minutes on the power play +4% WSH
P2 7:09 Too many men on the ice on the Capitals (WSH): 2 minutes on the power play +5% LAK
P2 5:22 Tripping on the Kings (Alex Laferriere): 2 minutes on the power play +5% WSH
P3 16:50 Hooking on the Kings (Drew Doughty): 2 minutes on the power play +6% WSH
P3 14:09 Hooking on the Capitals (Vincent Desharnais): 2 minutes on the power play +7% LAK
P3 0:11 Tripping on the Kings (Brandt Clarke): 2 minutes on the power play 0% WSH

When it happened

Capitals’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 85%. 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 Capitals were ahead in it, below while the Kings were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 10:35 Ryan Leonard scored on a snap shot from 38 feetShooting · 7% chance +15% WSH –
2 P1 1:25 Cole Hutson scored on a snap shot from 30 feetShooting · 14% chance +12% WSH –
3 P1 0:33 Adrian Kempe scored on a snap shot from 27 feetShooting · 8% chance +13% LAK –
4 P1 0:02 Artemi Panarin scored on a snap shot from 38 feetShooting · 4% chance +18% LAK –
5 P3 16:50 Hooking on the Kings (Drew Doughty): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +6% WSH –
6 P3 14:09 Hooking on the Capitals (Vincent Desharnais): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +7% LAK –
7 P3 12:32 Erik Gustafsson scored on a snap shot from 7 feetShooting · 21% chance +24% LAK –
8 P3 8:25 Adrian Kempe scored on a snap shot from 6 feetShooting · 19% chance +11% LAK –

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

Kings 46% · Capitals 54%

Final margin
Kings by 3
Luck in goals
3.4 for the Kings
Luck-adjusted margin
Capitals by 0.4
Replay with same day's form
Kings 32% · Capitals 68% 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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