luckadjusted
NHL Week 6 · 2026-27

2026-27 regular season · November 5, 2026

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

Golden Knights at Red Wings, Nov 5, 2026: who deserved to win?

The Golden Knights beat the Red Wings 2–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Golden Knights win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 36 points of win probability to the Golden Knights.

The game turned on a luck play (P3, 15:40 left): Braeden Bowman scored on a snap shot from 36 feet, worth 26 points of win probability to the Golden Knights. The biggest single swing (P3, 1:42 left): Trevor Connelly scored on a snap shot from 28 feet.

Final

Vegas Golden Knights 2
Detroit Red Wings 1

November 5, 2026 · Little Caesars Arena

Our prediction before puck drop: Golden Knights by 0.3

Luck index +50 Golden Knights lucky · −50 Red Wings

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 5, Red Wings win 5.

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

Our prediction before puck drop

We had the Golden Knights by 0.3, 55% to win. The Golden Knights won by 1: the pick was right. The final margin was 0.7 goals from ours; 79% of games like this end further from the forecast than that.

Show as a table
OutcomeChance
Golden Knights win55.1%
Red Wings win44.9%
Middle 50%: Golden Knights by 2 to Red Wings by 250%
Middle 90%: Golden Knights by 4 to Red Wings by 490%
Middle 95%: Golden Knights by 5 to Red Wings by 495%
Exactly Golden Knights by 121.2%
Exactly Red Wings by 119.8%
Exactly Golden Knights by 313.1%
Exactly Golden Knights by 211.1%
Exactly Red Wings by 310.1%

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 Thu, Nov 5, 1:24 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 4,000.1 replays ended

Golden Knights win 50% of them, Red Wings 50%. The line is what actually happened: Golden Knights by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Golden Knights by 3+20.4%
Golden Knights by 29.4%
Golden Knights by 120.3%
Red Wings by 120.7%
Red Wings by 210.7%
Red Wings by 3+18.4%

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 +0.3 goals to the Red Wings: the final margin was Golden Knights by 1, without the luck Golden Knights by 1.3. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Golden Knights4422.98−0.98
Red Wings4713.00−2.00

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 17:16 Tripping on the Red Wings (Lucas Raymond): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VGK
P2 19:18 Tripping on the Red Wings (Alex DeBrincat): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VGK
P3 14:30 Tripping on the Red Wings (Andrew Copp): 2 minutes on the power play +7% VGK
P3 12:23 Interference goalkeeper on the Golden Knights (Mark Stone): 2 minutes on the power play +7% DET
P3 9:01 Tripping on the Golden Knights (Braeden Bowman): 2 minutes on the power play +8% DET

When it happened

Red Wings’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 79%. 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 Golden Knights were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P2 9:51 Alex DeBrincat missed the net with a snap shot from 9 feetShooting · 23% chance +5% VGK –
2 P3 17:58 Anton Johansson scored on a snap shot from 20 feetShooting · 10% chance +23% DET –
3 P3 15:40 The game turned hereBraeden Bowman scored on a snap shot from 36 feetShooting · 6% chance +26% VGK –
4 P3 14:30 Tripping on the Red Wings (Andrew Copp): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +7% VGK –
5 P3 12:23 Interference goalkeeper on the Golden Knights (Mark Stone): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +7% DET –
6 P3 9:01 Tripping on the Golden Knights (Braeden Bowman): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +8% DET –
7 P3 8:23 Viktor Arvidsson’s poke shot from 2 feet was savedShooting · 35% chance +12% VGK –
8 P3 1:42 Trevor Connelly scored on a snap shot from 28 feetShooting · 9% chance +40% VGK –

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 75% · Red Wings 25%

Final margin
Golden Knights by 1
Luck in goals
0.2 for the Red Wings
Luck-adjusted margin
Golden Knights by 1.2
Replay with same day's form
Golden Knights 50% · Red Wings 50% 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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