2026-27 regular season · November 3, 2026
No betting line for this game, so there is no before-puck-drop or fresh-game number.
Stars at Capitals, Nov 3, 2026: who deserved to win?
The Stars beat the Capitals 6–5, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 6 of 10.
The biggest swing (P1, 11:04 left): Joel Kiviranta scored on a backhand shot from 6 feet, worth 15 points of win probability to the Stars.
Final
 Dallas Stars | 6 |
|---|---|
 Washington Capitals | 5 |
Replay with same day's form
Luck index +38 Stars lucky · −38 Capitals
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. Stars win 6, Capitals win 4.
- 1 DAL 6 WSH 1
- 2 DAL 4 WSH 1
- 3 DAL 5 WSH 2
- 4 DAL 3 WSH 1
- 5 DAL 1 WSH 0
- 6 DAL 4 WSH 3
- 7 DAL 1 WSH 2
- 8 DAL 2 WSH 3
- 9 DAL 1 WSH 3
- 10 DAL 3 WSH 6
Our prediction before puck drop
We had the Capitals by 0.1, 51% to win. The Stars won by 1, a result we gave 49%. The final margin was 1.1 goals from ours; 59% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.
Show as a table
| Outcome | Chance |
|---|---|
| Stars win | 48.8% |
| Capitals win | 51.2% |
| Middle 50%: Stars by 2 to Capitals by 2 | 50% |
| Middle 90%: Stars by 4 to Capitals by 4 | 90% |
| Middle 95%: Stars by 4 to Capitals by 5 | 95% |
| Exactly Capitals by 1 | 21.1% |
| Exactly Stars by 1 | 20.1% |
| Exactly Capitals by 3 | 12.1% |
| Exactly Stars by 3 | 11.1% |
| Exactly Stars 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 Tue, Nov 3, 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 4,000 replays ended
Stars win 62% of them, Capitals 38%. The line is what actually happened: Stars by 1.
Show as a table
| Final margin in the replays | Share of replays |
|---|---|
| Stars by 3+ | 29.8% |
| Stars by 2 | 11.7% |
| Stars by 1 | 20.8% |
| Capitals by 1 | 21.1% |
| Capitals by 2 | 7.2% |
| Capitals by 3+ | 9.5% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Stars | 36 | 6 | 3.05 | +2.95 |
 Capitals | 38 | 5 | 2.38 | +2.62 |
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 6:26 | Tripping on the Stars (Thomas Harley): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% WSH |
| P1 1:06 | Roughing on the Capitals (Tom Wilson): 2 minutes on the power play | +4% DAL |
| P2 12:26 | Too many men on the ice on the Capitals (WSH): 2 minutes on the power play | +1% DAL |
| P2 10:30 | Too many men on the ice on the Stars (DAL): 2 minutes on the power play | +1% WSH |
| P2 1:40 | Holding on the Stars (Lian Bichsel): 2 minutes on the power play | +1% WSH |
When it happened
Capitals’ chance of winning
As low as 0% and as high as 54%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.
| # | When | What happened | Win probability for | Next drive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P1 11:04 | Joel Kiviranta scored on a backhand shot from 6 feetShooting · 12% chance | +15% DAL | – |
| 2 | P1 1:06 | Roughing on the Capitals (Tom Wilson): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls | +4% DAL | – |
| 3 | P2 19:37 | Jason Robertson scored on a snap shot from 21 feetShooting · 15% chance | +13% DAL | – |
| 4 | P2 16:42 | Jason Robertson scored on a snap shot from 41 feetShooting · 4% chance | +10% DAL | – |
| 5 | P2 14:17 | Jason Robertson scored on a snap shot from 60 feetShooting · 2% chance | +4% DAL | – |
| 6 | P2 0:30 | Jakob Chychrun scored on a snap shot from 30 feetShooting · 14% chance | +6% WSH | – |
| 7 | P3 18:37 | Roope Hintz scored on a backhand shot from 27 feetShooting · 5% chance | +7% DAL | – |
| 8 | P3 1:02 | Ryan Leonard scored on a snap shot from 34 feetShooting · 5% chance | +5% 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
Stars 62% · Capitals 38%
- Final margin
- Stars by 1
- Luck in goals
- 0.2 for the Stars
- Luck-adjusted margin
- Stars by 0.8
- Replay with same day's form
- Stars 62% · Capitals 38% 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.
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