luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · October 8, 2025 · SO

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

Flames at Oilers, Oct 8, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Flames beat the Oilers 4–3, but the replays lean toward the Oilers: they take 7 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: shootout alone was worth 50 points of win probability to the Flames.

The game turned on a luck play (SO): the Flames won the shootout, worth 50 points of win probability to the Flames.

Final (SO)

Calgary Flames 4
Edmonton Oilers 3

October 8, 2025 · Rogers Place

Luck index +67 Flames very lucky · −67 Oilers

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. Flames win 3, Oilers win 7.

  1. 1 CGY 4 EDM 1
  2. 2 CGY 3 EDM 2
  3. 3 CGY 5 EDM 4
  4. 4 CGY 1 EDM 2
  5. 5 CGY 2 EDM 3
  6. 6 CGY 0 EDM 2
  7. 7 CGY 0 EDM 2
  8. 8 CGY 2 EDM 5
  9. 9 CGY 1 EDM 4
  10. 10 CGY 0 EDM 4

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 3,999.9 replays ended

Flames win 33% of them, Oilers 67%. The line is what actually happened: Flames by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Flames by 3+5.8%
Flames by 26.1%
Flames by 121.6%
Oilers by 123.9%
Oilers by 214.0%
Oilers by 3+28.7%

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 +1.6 goals to the Flames: the final margin was Flames by 1, without the luck Oilers by 0.6. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Flames3331.67+1.33
Oilers4032.42+0.58

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 11:09 Delaying game puck over glass on the Flames (Morgan Frost): 2 minutes on the power play +4% EDM
P1 8:56 Tripping on the Oilers (David Tomasek): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CGY
P2 12:20 Hooking on the Flames (Adam Klapka): 2 minutes on the power play +3% EDM
P2 6:22 High sticking on the Oilers (David Tomasek): 2 minutes on the power play +3% CGY
P3 15:13 Hooking on the Oilers (Ryan Nugent-Hopkins): 2 minutes on the power play +7% CGY
P3 11:08 Hooking on the Flames (Adam Klapka): 2 minutes on the power play +7% EDM
P3 1:37 Tripping on the Oilers (Trent Frederic): 2 minutes on the power play +10% CGY
OT 1:29 Holding on the Flames (MacKenzie Weegar): 2 minutes on the power play +12% EDM

When it happened

Oilers’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 96%. 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 Oilers were ahead in it, below while the Flames were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 10:07 Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scored on a wrist shot from 7 feetShooting · 18% chance +14% EDM –
2 P1 3:49 Andrew Mangiapane scored on a snap shot from 28 feetShooting · 7% chance +13% EDM –
3 P2 5:13 Connor Zary scored on a bat shot from 8 feetShooting · 16% chance +12% CGY –
4 P3 19:20 Blake Coleman scored on a poke shot from 6 feetShooting · 14% chance +22% CGY –
5 P3 1:51 Connor McDavid’s wrist shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 17% chance +7% CGY –
6 P3 1:37 Tripping on the Oilers (Trent Frederic): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +10% CGY –
7 SO The game turned hereThe Flames won the shootoutShootout · shootouts are close to coin flips +49% CGY –
8 OT 1:29 Holding on the Flames (MacKenzie Weegar): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +12% EDM –

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

Flames 35% · Oilers 65%

Final margin
Flames by 1
Luck in goals
1.6 for the Flames
Luck-adjusted margin
Oilers by 0.6
Replay with same day's form
Flames 33% · Oilers 67% 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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