2026-27 regular season · October 29, 2026
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Bruins at Blues, Oct 29, 2026: who deserved to win?
The Blues beat the Bruins 4–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Blues win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 20 points of win probability to the Blues.
The biggest swing (P2, 14:43 left): Philip Broberg scored on a wrist shot from 26 feet, worth 18 points of win probability to the Blues.
Final
 Boston Bruins | 1 |
|---|---|
 St. Louis Blues | 4 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +53 Blues lucky · −53 Bruins
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. Bruins win 5, Blues win 5.
- 1 BOS 5 STL 1
- 2 BOS 4 STL 1
- 3 BOS 3 STL 1
- 4 BOS 2 STL 1
- 5 BOS 5 STL 4
- 6 BOS 3 STL 4
- 7 BOS 3 STL 4
- 8 BOS 3 STL 5
- 9 BOS 3 STL 6
- 10 BOS 0 STL 4
Our prediction before puck drop
We had the Blues by 0.1, 53% to win. The Blues won by 3: the pick was right. The final margin was 2.9 goals from ours; 27% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.
Show as a table
| Outcome | Chance |
|---|---|
| Bruins win | 47.5% |
| Blues win | 52.5% |
| Middle 50%: Bruins by 2 to Blues by 2 | 50% |
| Middle 90%: Bruins by 4 to Blues by 4 | 90% |
| Middle 95%: Bruins by 4 to Blues by 5 | 95% |
| Exactly Blues by 1 | 21.3% |
| Exactly Bruins by 1 | 19.9% |
| Exactly Blues by 3 | 12.5% |
| Exactly Bruins by 3 | 10.7% |
| Exactly Blues by 2 | 10.0% |
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.
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 3,999.9 replays ended
Bruins win 53% of them, Blues 47%. The line is what actually happened: Blues by 3.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Bruins by 3+ | 20.3% |
| Bruins by 2 | 10.6% |
| Bruins by 1 | 22.1% |
| Blues by 1 | 22.8% |
| Blues by 2 | 9.7% |
| Blues by 3+ | 14.5% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Bruins | 51 | 1 | 2.88 | −1.88 |
 Blues | 31 | 4 | 2.30 | +1.70 |
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 4:21 | Interference on the Bruins (Charlie McAvoy): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% STL |
| P2 10:46 | Tripping on the Blues (Robert Thomas): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% BOS |
| P3 19:20 | Interference on the Bruins (David Pastrnak): 2 minutes on the power play | +2% STL |
| P3 11:10 | Tripping on the Blues (Joel Hofer): 2 minutes on the power play | +2% BOS |
| P3 7:24 | Tripping on the Bruins (Morgan Geekie): 2 minutes on the power play | +2% STL |
When it happened
Blues’ chance of winning
As low as 35% and as high as 100%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 14:32 | James Hagens scored on a tip from 16 feetShooting · 6% chance | +16% BOS | – |
| 2 | P1 4:21 | Interference on the Bruins (Charlie McAvoy): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +4% STL | – |
| 3 | P1 4:17 | Jimmy Snuggerud scored on a snap shot from 25 feetShooting · 15% chance | +15% STL | – |
| 4 | P1 0:30 | Mason McTavish’s wrist shot from 2 feet was savedShooting · 38% chance | +7% BOS | – |
| 5 | P2 14:43 | Philip Broberg scored on a wrist shot from 26 feetShooting · 9% chance | +18% STL | – |
| 6 | P2 10:46 | Tripping on the Blues (Robert Thomas): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +4% BOS | – |
| 7 | P2 7:52 | Robert Thomas scored on a wrist shot from 31 feetShooting · 8% chance | +14% STL | – |
| 8 | P3 9:12 | JJ Peterka missed the net with a snap shot from 20 feetShooting · 30% chance | +4% STL | – |
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
Bruins 41% · Blues 59%
- Final margin
- Blues by 3
- Luck in goals
- 2.7 for the Blues
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Blues by 0.3
- Replay with same day's form
- Bruins 53% · Blues 47% 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
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