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.
Final
| 2 | |
| 5 |
Replay with same day's form
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 PHI 3 WSH 1
- 2 PHI 3 WSH 2
- 3 PHI 3 WSH 2
- 4 PHI 0 WSH 1
- 5 PHI 2 WSH 3
- 6 PHI 2 WSH 4
- 7 PHI 2 WSH 5
- 8 PHI 4 WSH 7
- 9 PHI 2 WSH 6
- 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
| Outcome | Chance |
|---|---|
| Flyers win | 38.6% |
| Capitals win | 61.4% |
| Middle 50%: Flyers by 1 to Capitals by 3 | 50% |
| Middle 90%: Flyers by 3 to Capitals by 4 | 90% |
| Middle 95%: Flyers by 4 to Capitals by 5 | 95% |
| Exactly Capitals by 1 | 22.3% |
| Exactly Flyers by 1 | 17.7% |
| Exactly Capitals by 3 | 15.4% |
| Exactly Capitals by 2 | 11.4% |
| Exactly Flyers by 3 | 8.1% |
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.
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
Flyers win 31% of them, Capitals 69%. The line is what actually happened: Capitals by 3.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Flyers by 3+ | 6.1% |
| Flyers by 2 | 6.8% |
| Flyers by 1 | 18.4% |
| Capitals by 1 | 19.1% |
| Capitals by 2 | 13.6% |
| 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.
| Shooting | Unblocked attempts | Goals | Expected goals | Above expected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 34 | 2 | 2.03 | −0.03 | |
| 42 | 4 | 3.10 | +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.
| When | Call | Win 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.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next 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
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.
More from week 5, 2026-27
- Blue Jackets at Flyers Oct 27, 2026 · CBJ 4–3 OT · replay 23% for the winner
- Wild at Capitals Nov 1, 2026 · MIN 5–1 · replay 40% for the winner
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- Mammoth at Flyers Nov 1, 2026 · PHI 6–3 · replay 45% for the winner
- Blue Jackets at Stars Oct 31, 2026 · DAL 3–1 · replay 48% for the winner
- Capitals at Predators Oct 29, 2026 · WSH 4–3 · replay 52% for the winner
- Penguins at Canadiens Oct 31, 2026 · MTL 5–4 · replay 52% for the winner
- Oilers at Islanders Oct 31, 2026 · EDM 4–0 · replay 53% for the winner
- Blue Jackets at Hurricanes Oct 29, 2026 · CAR 3–2 · replay 53% for the winner
- Kings at Rangers Oct 26, 2026 · LAK 6–3 · replay 55% for the winner
- Islanders at Wild Oct 29, 2026 · NYI 4–3 OT · replay 55% for the winner
- Mammoth at Penguins Oct 29, 2026 · UTA 4–3 OT · replay 56% for the winner