luckadjusted
NHL Week 6 · 2026-27

2026-27 regular season · October 29, 2026

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

Blackhawks at Red Wings, Oct 29, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Red Wings beat the Blackhawks 4–1, and the replays back it up: with the way both teams actually played, the Red Wings win 8 of 10. The Blackhawks had the bounces: shooting alone was worth 10 points of win probability to the Blackhawks.

The biggest swing (P3, 18:51 left): Lucas Raymond scored on a snap shot from 37 feet, worth 23 points of win probability to the Red Wings.

Luck index +19 Red Wings about even · −19 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. Blackhawks win 2, Red Wings win 8.

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

Our prediction before puck drop

We had the Red Wings by 0.9, 64% to win. The Red Wings won by 3: the pick was right. The final margin was 2.1 goals from ours; 32% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.

Show as a table
OutcomeChance
Blackhawks win35.7%
Red Wings win64.3%
Middle 50%: Blackhawks by 1 to Red Wings by 350%
Middle 90%: Blackhawks by 3 to Red Wings by 590%
Middle 95%: Blackhawks by 4 to Red Wings by 595%
Exactly Red Wings by 122.5%
Exactly Blackhawks by 116.8%
Exactly Red Wings by 316.4%
Exactly Red Wings by 211.8%
Exactly Red Wings by 48.3%

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 Thu, Oct 29, 1:10 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 4,000.3 replays ended

Blackhawks win 19% of them, Red Wings 81%. The line is what actually happened: Red Wings by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Blackhawks by 3+2.7%
Blackhawks by 23.0%
Blackhawks by 112.9%
Red Wings by 113.8%
Red Wings by 210.7%
Red Wings by 3+57.0%

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 +0.1 goals to the Red Wings: the final margin was Red Wings by 3, without the luck Red Wings by 2.9. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Blackhawks3211.57−0.57
Red Wings5034.20−1.20

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 2:09 Tripping on the Blackhawks (Ian Cole): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DET
P2 18:00 Hooking on the Blackhawks (Kevin Korchinski): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DET
P2 15:43 Cross checking on the Blackhawks (Frank Nazar): 2 minutes on the power play +4% DET
P3 19:22 High sticking on the Blackhawks (Patrick Kane): 2 minutes on the power play +6% DET
P3 11:17 Slashing on the Red Wings (Justin Faulk): 2 minutes on the power play +5% CHI

When it happened

Red Wings’ chance of winning

As low as 32% 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 Red Wings were ahead in it, below while the Blackhawks were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 14:01 Connor Bedard scored on a backhand shot from 7 feetShooting · 13% chance +14% CHI –
2 P1 2:03 Viktor Arvidsson’s snap shot from 5 feet was savedShooting · 35% chance +7% CHI –
3 P2 12:29 Viktor Arvidsson scored on a tip from 28 feetShooting · 4% chance +20% DET –
4 P2 9:29 Emmitt Finnie’s snap shot from 9 feet was savedShooting · 21% chance +4% CHI –
5 P3 19:22 High sticking on the Blackhawks (Patrick Kane): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +6% DET –
6 P3 18:51 Lucas Raymond scored on a snap shot from 37 feetShooting · 8% chance +23% DET –
7 P3 11:17 Slashing on the Red Wings (Justin Faulk): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% CHI –
8 P3 4:34 Viktor Arvidsson scored on a wrist shot from 5 feetShooting · 24% chance +7% DET –

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

Blackhawks 3% · Red Wings 97%

Final margin
Red Wings by 3
Luck in goals
0.1 for the Red Wings
Luck-adjusted margin
Red Wings by 2.9
Replay with same day's form
Blackhawks 19% · Red Wings 81% 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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