luckadjusted
NHL Week 6 · 2026-27

2026-27 regular season · October 22, 2026

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

Panthers at Penguins, Oct 22, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Penguins beat the Panthers 4–0, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Penguins win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 24 points of win probability to the Penguins.

The biggest swing (P1, 4:41 left): Nick Robertson scored on a wrist shot from 25 feet, worth 16 points of win probability to the Penguins.

Luck index +46 Penguins lucky · −46 Panthers

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. Panthers win 5, Penguins win 5.

  1. 1 FLA 3 PIT 0
  2. 2 FLA 3 PIT 1
  3. 3 FLA 3 PIT 2
  4. 4 FLA 4 PIT 3
  5. 5 FLA 1 PIT 0
  6. 6 FLA 2 PIT 3
  7. 7 FLA 0 PIT 1
  8. 8 FLA 3 PIT 4
  9. 9 FLA 0 PIT 2
  10. 10 FLA 2 PIT 5

Our prediction before puck drop

We had the Penguins by 0.3, 55% to win. The Penguins won by 4: the pick was right. The final margin was 3.7 goals from ours; 10% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.

Show as a table
OutcomeChance
Panthers win45.2%
Penguins win54.8%
Middle 50%: Panthers by 2 to Penguins by 250%
Middle 90%: Panthers by 4 to Penguins by 490%
Middle 95%: Panthers by 4 to Penguins by 595%
Exactly Penguins by 121.7%
Exactly Panthers by 119.4%
Exactly Penguins by 313.3%
Exactly Penguins by 210.4%
Exactly Panthers by 310.0%

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 Thu, Oct 22, 11:45 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 4,000 replays ended

Panthers win 46% of them, Penguins 54%. The line is what actually happened: Penguins by 4.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Panthers by 3+12.2%
Panthers by 29.4%
Panthers by 124.0%
Penguins by 124.7%
Penguins by 211.0%
Penguins by 3+18.7%

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 +1.5 goals to the Penguins: the final margin was Penguins by 4, without the luck Penguins by 2.5. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Panthers3802.38−2.38
Penguins3032.05+0.95

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 12:38 Hooking on the Panthers (Uvis Balinskis): 2 minutes on the power play +4% PIT
P1 10:57 Delaying game puck over glass on the Panthers (Garnet Hathaway): 2 minutes on the power play +4% PIT
P2 18:14 Tripping on the Penguins (Evgeni Malkin): 2 minutes on the power play +4% FLA
P2 5:55 Boarding on the Panthers (Garnet Hathaway): 2 minutes on the power play +3% PIT
P2 3:43 High sticking double minor on the Penguins (Arturs Silovs): 4 minutes on the power play +5% FLA
P3 5:59 Holding on the Penguins (Ville Koivunen): 2 minutes on the power play 0% FLA

When it happened

Penguins’ chance of winning

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 Penguins were ahead in it, below while the Panthers were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 12:38 Hooking on the Panthers (Uvis Balinskis): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% PIT –
2 P1 10:57 Delaying game puck over glass on the Panthers (Garnet Hathaway): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% PIT –
3 P1 4:41 Nick Robertson scored on a wrist shot from 25 feetShooting · 11% chance +16% PIT –
4 P2 18:14 Tripping on the Penguins (Evgeni Malkin): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% FLA –
5 P2 12:20 Matthew Tkachuk missed the net with a wrist shot from 8 feetShooting · 18% chance +4% PIT –
6 P2 10:01 Hendrix Lapierre scored on a wrist shot from 7 feetShooting · 17% chance +12% PIT –
7 P2 3:43 High sticking double minor on the Penguins (Arturs Silovs): 4 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% FLA –
8 P3 18:20 Evgeni Malkin scored on a wrist shot from 15 feetShooting · 12% chance +5% PIT –

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

Panthers 8% · Penguins 92%

Final margin
Penguins by 4
Luck in goals
1.5 for the Penguins
Luck-adjusted margin
Penguins by 2.5
Replay with same day's form
Panthers 46% · Penguins 54% 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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