luckadjusted
NHL Week 6 · 2026-27

2026-27 regular season · November 2, 2026 · SO

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

Golden Knights at Bruins, Nov 2, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Bruins beat the Golden Knights 3–2, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Bruins win 6 of 10. Luck ran their way: shootout alone was worth 51 points of win probability to the Bruins.

The biggest swing (SO): the Bruins won the shootout, worth 51 points of win probability to the Bruins.

Luck index +42 Bruins lucky · −42 Golden Knights

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. Golden Knights win 4, Bruins win 6.

  1. 1 VGK 3 BOS 0
  2. 2 VGK 3 BOS 1
  3. 3 VGK 1 BOS 0
  4. 4 VGK 4 BOS 3
  5. 5 VGK 2 BOS 3
  6. 6 VGK 2 BOS 3
  7. 7 VGK 2 BOS 4
  8. 8 VGK 1 BOS 4
  9. 9 VGK 0 BOS 3
  10. 10 VGK 0 BOS 4

Our prediction before puck drop

We had the Golden Knights by 0.3, 54% to win. The Bruins won by 1, a result we gave 46%. The final margin was 1.3 goals from ours; 59% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.

Show as a table
OutcomeChance
Golden Knights win54.4%
Bruins win45.6%
Middle 50%: Golden Knights by 2 to Bruins by 250%
Middle 90%: Golden Knights by 4 to Bruins by 490%
Middle 95%: Golden Knights by 5 to Bruins by 495%
Exactly Golden Knights by 121.1%
Exactly Bruins by 119.9%
Exactly Golden Knights by 312.9%
Exactly Golden Knights by 211.0%
Exactly Bruins by 310.3%

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 Mon, Nov 2, 3:43 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 replays ended

Golden Knights win 42% of them, Bruins 58%. The line is what actually happened: Bruins by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Golden Knights by 3+13.3%
Golden Knights by 28.3%
Golden Knights by 120.0%
Bruins by 123.0%
Bruins by 210.5%
Bruins by 3+24.8%

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 +0.8 goals to the Bruins: the final margin was Bruins by 1, without the luck Bruins by 0.2. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Golden Knights3322.47−0.47
Bruins4022.79−0.79

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 12:26 Tripping on the Golden Knights (Brett Howden): 2 minutes on the power play +3% BOS
P1 4:20 Interference on the Bruins (Charlie McAvoy): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VGK
P2 17:11 Elbowing on the Golden Knights (Braeden Bowman): 5 minutes on the power play +10% BOS
P2 5:10 Holding on the Bruins (Charlie McAvoy): 2 minutes on the power play +3% VGK
P2 5:02 Abuse of officials on the Bruins (Charlie McAvoy): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VGK
P3 6:12 Delaying game puck over glass on the Golden Knights (Carter Hart): 2 minutes on the power play +8% BOS

When it happened

Bruins’ 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 Bruins were ahead in it, below while the Golden Knights were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 12:37 James Hagens scored on a snap shot from 8 feetShooting · 22% chance +13% BOS –
2 P2 17:11 Elbowing on the Golden Knights (Braeden Bowman): 5 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +10% BOS –
3 P2 16:37 Morgan Geekie scored on a snap shot from 22 feetShooting · 21% chance +11% BOS –
4 P2 5:02 Mark Stone scored on a wrist shot from 7 feetShooting · 22% chanceAbuse of officials on the Bruins (Charlie McAvoy): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +16% VGK –
5 P3 12:37 Trevor Connelly scored on a wrist shot from 11 feetShooting · 4% chance +28% VGK –
6 P3 6:12 Delaying game puck over glass on the Golden Knights (Carter Hart): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +8% BOS –
7 P3 4:15 Jonathan Aspirot’s wrist shot from 18 feet was savedShooting · 19% chance +7% VGK –
8 SO The Bruins won the shootoutShootout · shootouts are close to coin flips +51% BOS –

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

Golden Knights 44% · Bruins 56%

Final margin
Bruins by 1
Luck in goals
0.8 for the Bruins
Luck-adjusted margin
Bruins by 0.2
Replay with same day's form
Golden Knights 42% · Bruins 58% 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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