luckadjusted
NHL Week 6 · 2026-27

2026-27 regular season · October 27, 2026

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

Kings at Blackhawks, Oct 27, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Blackhawks beat the Kings 2–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Blackhawks win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 40 points of win probability to the Blackhawks.

The biggest swing (P3, 12:43 left): Wyatt Kaiser scored on a wrist shot from 28 feet, worth 28 points of win probability to the Blackhawks.

Final

Los Angeles Kings 1
Chicago Blackhawks 2

October 27, 2026 · United Center

Our prediction before puck drop: Kings by 0.6

Luck index +48 Blackhawks lucky · −48 Kings

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 5, Blackhawks win 5.

  1. 1 LAK 4 CHI 0
  2. 2 LAK 4 CHI 1
  3. 3 LAK 5 CHI 3
  4. 4 LAK 5 CHI 4
  5. 5 LAK 3 CHI 2
  6. 6 LAK 4 CHI 5
  7. 7 LAK 2 CHI 3
  8. 8 LAK 2 CHI 4
  9. 9 LAK 1 CHI 4
  10. 10 LAK 0 CHI 4

Our prediction before puck drop

We had the Kings by 0.6, 60% to win. The Blackhawks won by 1, a result we gave 40%. The final margin was 1.6 goals from ours; 48% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.

Show as a table
OutcomeChance
Kings win59.6%
Blackhawks win40.4%
Middle 50%: Kings by 3 to Blackhawks by 150%
Middle 90%: Kings by 4 to Blackhawks by 490%
Middle 95%: Kings by 5 to Blackhawks by 495%
Exactly Kings by 121.7%
Exactly Blackhawks by 118.6%
Exactly Kings by 314.6%
Exactly Kings by 211.9%
Exactly Blackhawks by 38.8%

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 27, 12:07 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.

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 48% of them, Blackhawks 52%. The line is what actually happened: Blackhawks by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Kings by 3+19.5%
Kings by 29.2%
Kings by 119.6%
Blackhawks by 119.7%
Blackhawks by 211.0%
Blackhawks by 3+21.1%

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 +0.2 goals to the Blackhawks: the final margin was Blackhawks by 1, without the luck Blackhawks by 0.8. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Kings4513.29−2.29
Blackhawks5323.34−1.34

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 11:38 Tripping on the Blackhawks (Jordan Greenway): 2 minutes on the power play +4% LAK
P2 5:34 Tripping on the Kings (Joel Armia): 2 minutes on the power play +5% CHI
P2 3:31 Interference on the Kings (Joel Armia): 2 minutes on the power play +5% CHI
P2 1:05 High sticking double minor on the Blackhawks (Sam Rinzel): 4 minutes on the power play +12% LAK
P3 0:13 Holding on the Kings (Artemi Panarin): 2 minutes on the power play +6% CHI

When it happened

Blackhawks’ chance of winning

As low as 28% and as high as 100%. 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 Blackhawks were ahead in it, below while the Kings were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 17:29 Samuel Helenius scored on a wrist shot from 9 feetShooting · 14% chance +14% LAK –
2 P2 3:31 Interference on the Kings (Joel Armia): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% CHI –
3 P2 3:20 Roman Kantserov scored on a snap shot from 10 feetShooting · 28% chance +17% CHI –
4 P2 1:05 High sticking double minor on the Blackhawks (Sam Rinzel): 4 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +11% LAK –
5 P2 0:27 Alex Laferriere’s wrist shot from 5 feet was savedShooting · 19% chance +5% CHI –
6 P2 0:26 Alex Laferriere’s wrist shot from 4 feet was savedShooting · 31% chance +8% CHI –
7 P3 12:43 Wyatt Kaiser scored on a wrist shot from 28 feetShooting · 6% chance +28% CHI –
8 P3 0:13 Holding on the Kings (Artemi Panarin): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +6% CHI –

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 34% · Blackhawks 66%

Final margin
Blackhawks by 1
Luck in goals
0.2 for the Blackhawks
Luck-adjusted margin
Blackhawks by 0.8
Replay with same day's form
Kings 48% · Blackhawks 52% 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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