2026-27 regular season · October 24, 2026 · OT
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Golden Knights at Blue Jackets, Oct 24, 2026: who deserved to win?
The Blue Jackets beat the Golden Knights 2–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Blue Jackets win 4 of 10. Luck ran their way: overtime alone was worth 49 points of win probability to the Blue Jackets.
The biggest swing (OT): the Blue Jackets won in overtime, worth 49 points of win probability to the Blue Jackets.
Final (OT)
 Vegas Golden Knights | 1 |
|---|---|
 Columbus Blue Jackets | 2 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +57 Blue Jackets lucky · −57 Golden Knights
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. Golden Knights win 6, Blue Jackets win 4.
- 1 VGK 5 CBJ 1
- 2 VGK 4 CBJ 1
- 3 VGK 4 CBJ 2
- 4 VGK 5 CBJ 3
- 5 VGK 1 CBJ 0
- 6 VGK 5 CBJ 4
- 7 VGK 2 CBJ 3
- 8 VGK 5 CBJ 6
- 9 VGK 0 CBJ 2
- 10 VGK 2 CBJ 5
Our prediction before puck drop
We had the Golden Knights by 0.3, 56% to win. The Blue Jackets won by 1, a result we gave 44%. The final margin was 1.3 goals from ours; 59% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.
Show as a table
| Outcome | Chance |
|---|---|
| Golden Knights win | 55.8% |
| Blue Jackets win | 44.3% |
| Middle 50%: Golden Knights by 2 to Blue Jackets by 1 | 50% |
| Middle 90%: Golden Knights by 4 to Blue Jackets by 4 | 90% |
| Middle 95%: Golden Knights by 5 to Blue Jackets by 4 | 95% |
| Exactly Golden Knights by 1 | 21.3% |
| Exactly Blue Jackets by 1 | 19.6% |
| Exactly Golden Knights by 3 | 13.3% |
| Exactly Golden Knights by 2 | 11.2% |
| Exactly Blue Jackets by 3 | 9.9% |
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 24, 6:44 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 4,000.1 replays ended
Golden Knights win 57% of them, Blue Jackets 43%. The line is what actually happened: Blue Jackets by 1.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Golden Knights by 3+ | 21.9% |
| Golden Knights by 2 | 11.7% |
| Golden Knights by 1 | 23.4% |
| Blue Jackets by 1 | 23.8% |
| Blue Jackets by 2 | 8.4% |
| Blue Jackets by 3+ | 10.9% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Golden Knights | 37 | 1 | 2.55 | −1.55 |
 Blue Jackets | 31 | 1 | 1.81 | −0.81 |
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 14:43 | Tripping on the Blue Jackets (Ryan Lomberg): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% VGK |
| P3 16:43 | Tripping on the Golden Knights (Nic Dowd): 2 minutes on the power play | +6% CBJ |
| P3 13:59 | Interference on the Golden Knights (Jeremy Lauzon): 2 minutes on the power play | +7% CBJ |
| OT 4:45 | Holding on the Golden Knights (Shea Theodore): 2 minutes on the power play | +12% CBJ |
When it happened
Blue Jackets’ chance of winning
Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 8:09 | Denton Mateychuk scored on a backhand shot from 5 feetShooting · 18% chance | +14% CBJ | – |
| 2 | P1 2:47 | Tomas Hertl scored on a snap shot from 12 feetShooting · 17% chance | +15% VGK | – |
| 3 | P3 16:43 | Tripping on the Golden Knights (Nic Dowd): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +6% CBJ | – |
| 4 | P3 13:59 | Interference on the Golden Knights (Jeremy Lauzon): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +7% CBJ | – |
| 5 | P3 13:56 | Shea Theodore’s snap shot from 15 feet was savedShooting · 23% chance | +7% CBJ | – |
| 6 | P3 10:09 | Braeden Bowman snap, 6 ft: above crossbar (21% chance)Shooting | +7% CBJ | – |
| 7 | OT | The Blue Jackets won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip | +49% CBJ | – |
| 8 | OT 4:45 | Holding on the Golden Knights (Shea Theodore): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +12% CBJ | – |
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
Golden Knights 64% · Blue Jackets 36%
- Final margin
- Blue Jackets by 1
- Luck in goals
- 1.5 for the Blue Jackets
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Golden Knights by 0.5
- Replay with same day's form
- Golden Knights 57% · Blue Jackets 43% 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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