2026-27 regular season · October 25, 2026
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Panthers at Blackhawks, Oct 25, 2026: who deserved to win?
The Panthers beat the Blackhawks 3–2, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Panthers win 4 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 32 points of win probability to the Panthers.
The biggest swing (P3, 2:23 left): Lars Eller scored on a wrist shot from 34 feet, worth 41 points of win probability to the Panthers.
Final
 Florida Panthers | 3 |
|---|---|
 Chicago Blackhawks | 2 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +55 Panthers lucky · −55 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. Panthers win 4, Blackhawks win 6.
- 1 FLA 5 CHI 2
- 2 FLA 4 CHI 2
- 3 FLA 4 CHI 3
- 4 FLA 4 CHI 3
- 5 FLA 2 CHI 3
- 6 FLA 3 CHI 4
- 7 FLA 4 CHI 6
- 8 FLA 3 CHI 6
- 9 FLA 2 CHI 5
- 10 FLA 0 CHI 4
Our prediction before puck drop
We had the Panthers by 0.6, 61% to win. The Panthers 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
| Outcome | Chance |
|---|---|
| Panthers win | 60.5% |
| Blackhawks win | 39.5% |
| Middle 50%: Panthers by 3 to Blackhawks by 1 | 50% |
| Middle 90%: Panthers by 4 to Blackhawks by 3 | 90% |
| Middle 95%: Panthers by 5 to Blackhawks by 4 | 95% |
| Exactly Panthers by 1 | 21.8% |
| Exactly Blackhawks by 1 | 18.4% |
| Exactly Panthers by 3 | 14.9% |
| Exactly Panthers by 2 | 12.0% |
| Exactly Blackhawks by 3 | 8.5% |
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 Sun, Oct 25, 12:45 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
Panthers win 45% of them, Blackhawks 55%. The line is what actually happened: Panthers by 1.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Panthers by 3+ | 16.8% |
| Panthers by 2 | 8.6% |
| Panthers by 1 | 19.5% |
| Blackhawks by 1 | 20.3% |
| Blackhawks by 2 | 10.9% |
| Blackhawks by 3+ | 23.8% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Panthers | 47 | 3 | 2.84 | +0.16 |
 Blackhawks | 44 | 2 | 3.26 | −1.26 |
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 16:35 | Slashing on the Panthers (Matthew Tkachuk): 2 minutes on the power play | +3% CHI |
| P1 12:08 | High sticking on the Panthers (Radko Gudas): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% CHI |
| P1 11:01 | Delaying game puck over glass on the Panthers (Niko Mikkola): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% CHI |
| P1 5:44 | Tripping on the Blackhawks (Tyler Bertuzzi): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% FLA |
| P2 18:49 | High sticking double minor on the Panthers (Carter Verhaeghe): 4 minutes on the power play | +8% CHI |
| P2 3:24 | Interference on the Panthers (Niko Mikkola): 2 minutes on the power play | +6% CHI |
| P2 2:14 | Slashing on the Panthers (Aaron Ekblad): 2 minutes on the power play | +6% CHI |
| P2 1:39 | Interference on the Blackhawks (Roman Kantserov): 2 minutes on the power play | +6% FLA |
| P3 13:33 | Interference on the Blackhawks (Alex Vlasic): 2 minutes on the power play | +7% FLA |
| P3 8:00 | Tripping on the Blackhawks (Spencer Knight): 2 minutes on the power play | +8% FLA |
When it happened
Blackhawks’ chance of winning
As low as 0% and as high as 70%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 17:26 | Ryan Greene scored on a wrist shot from 8 feetShooting · 16% chance | +13% CHI | – |
| 2 | P1 13:11 | Sandis Vilmanis scored on a backhand shot from 5 feetShooting · 14% chance | +14% FLA | – |
| 3 | P1 5:39 | Matthew Tkachuk scored on a tip from 7 feetShooting · 11% chance | +16% FLA | – |
| 4 | P2 18:49 | High sticking double minor on the Panthers (Carter Verhaeghe): 4 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +8% CHI | – |
| 5 | P2 8:45 | Roman Kantserov scored on a wrist shot from 31 feetShooting · 6% chance | +21% CHI | – |
| 6 | P3 13:33 | Interference on the Blackhawks (Alex Vlasic): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +7% FLA | – |
| 7 | P3 8:00 | Tripping on the Blackhawks (Spencer Knight): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +8% FLA | – |
| 8 | P3 2:23 | Lars Eller scored on a wrist shot from 34 feetShooting · 4% chance | +41% FLA | – |
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 59% · Blackhawks 41%
- Final margin
- Panthers by 1
- Luck in goals
- 0.6 for the Panthers
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Panthers by 0.4
- Replay with same day's form
- Panthers 45% · Blackhawks 55% 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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