luckadjusted
NHL Week 6 · 2026-27

2026-27 regular season · October 28, 2026

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

Flyers at Capitals, Oct 28, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Capitals beat the Flyers 5–2, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 7 of 10.

The biggest swing (P2, 12:46 left): Jordan Kyrou scored on a snap shot from 26 feet, worth 18 points of win probability to the Capitals.

Luck index +31 Capitals lucky · −31 Flyers

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. Flyers win 3, Capitals win 7.

  1. 1 PHI 3 WSH 1
  2. 2 PHI 3 WSH 2
  3. 3 PHI 3 WSH 2
  4. 4 PHI 0 WSH 1
  5. 5 PHI 2 WSH 3
  6. 6 PHI 2 WSH 4
  7. 7 PHI 2 WSH 5
  8. 8 PHI 4 WSH 7
  9. 9 PHI 2 WSH 6
  10. 10 PHI 1 WSH 6

Our prediction before puck drop

We had the Capitals by 0.7, 61% to win. The Capitals won by 3: the pick was right. The final margin was 2.3 goals from ours; 33% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.

Show as a table
OutcomeChance
Flyers win38.6%
Capitals win61.4%
Middle 50%: Flyers by 1 to Capitals by 350%
Middle 90%: Flyers by 3 to Capitals by 490%
Middle 95%: Flyers by 4 to Capitals by 595%
Exactly Capitals by 122.3%
Exactly Flyers by 117.7%
Exactly Capitals by 315.4%
Exactly Capitals by 211.4%
Exactly Flyers by 38.1%

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 Wed, Oct 28, 6:49 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 4,000.1 replays ended

Flyers win 31% of them, Capitals 69%. The line is what actually happened: Capitals by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Flyers by 3+6.1%
Flyers by 26.8%
Flyers by 118.4%
Capitals by 119.1%
Capitals by 213.6%
Capitals by 3+36.0%

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 0.0 goals to the Capitals: the final margin was Capitals by 3, without the luck Capitals by 3. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Flyers3422.03−0.03
Capitals4243.10+0.90

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
P2 17:47 Holding on the Capitals (Cole Hutson): 2 minutes on the power play +4% PHI
P2 12:57 Slashing on the Flyers (Trevor Zegras): 2 minutes on the power play +5% WSH
P2 12:04 Tripping on the Flyers (Porter Martone): 2 minutes on the power play +4% WSH
P2 7:15 Roughing on the Flyers (Jacob Gaucher): 2 minutes on the power play +4% WSH
P3 10:24 Roughing on the Capitals (Matt Roy): 2 minutes on the power play +2% PHI
P3 10:16 Abuse of officials on the Capitals (Matt Roy): 2 minutes on the power play +5% PHI
P3 4:53 Roughing on the Capitals (Pierre-Luc Dubois): 2 minutes on the power play +1% PHI

When it happened

Capitals’ 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 Capitals were ahead in it, below while the Flyers were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 18:10 Alex Tuch scored on a snap shot from 20 feetShooting · 23% chance +12% WSH –
2 P2 15:24 Sean Couturier scored on a tip from 10 feetShooting · 7% chance +18% PHI –
3 P2 12:57 Slashing on the Flyers (Trevor Zegras): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% WSH –
4 P2 12:46 Jordan Kyrou scored on a snap shot from 26 feetShooting · 9% chance +18% WSH –
5 P2 7:15 Roughing on the Flyers (Jacob Gaucher): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% WSH –
6 P2 3:13 Aliaksei Protas scored on a tip from 7 feetShooting · 7% chance +14% WSH –
7 P3 10:16 Matvei Michkov scored on a wrist shot from 5 feetShooting · 20% chanceAbuse of officials on the Capitals (Matt Roy): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +16% PHI –
8 P3 7:09 Jordan Kyrou scored on a snap shot from 10 feetShooting · 12% chance +10% WSH –

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

Flyers 5% · Capitals 95%

Final margin
Capitals by 3
Luck in goals
none
Luck-adjusted margin
Capitals by 3.0
Replay with same day's form
Flyers 31% · Capitals 69% 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.

All week 5 2026-27 games · Flyers · Capitals

More from week 5, 2026-27

Every game of week 5, 2026-27