luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · October 11, 2025

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

Capitals at Islanders, Oct 11, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Capitals beat the Islanders 4–2, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 7 of 10.

The biggest swing (P1, 18:10 left): Martin Fehérváry scored on a backhand shot from 8 feet, worth 15 points of win probability to the Capitals.

Final

Washington Capitals 4
New York Islanders 2

October 11, 2025 · UBS Arena

Luck index +33 Capitals lucky · −33 Islanders

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. Capitals win 7, Islanders win 3.

  1. 1 WSH 6 NYI 0
  2. 2 WSH 9 NYI 5
  3. 3 WSH 5 NYI 2
  4. 4 WSH 4 NYI 1
  5. 5 WSH 4 NYI 2
  6. 6 WSH 3 NYI 2
  7. 7 WSH 4 NYI 3
  8. 8 WSH 1 NYI 2
  9. 9 WSH 1 NYI 2
  10. 10 WSH 1 NYI 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 4,000 replays ended

Capitals win 67% of them, Islanders 33%. The line is what actually happened: Capitals by 2.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Capitals by 3+38.6%
Capitals by 210.9%
Capitals by 117.9%
Islanders by 118.9%
Islanders by 26.3%
Islanders by 3+7.4%

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 +0.7 goals to the Islanders: the final margin was Capitals by 2, without the luck Capitals by 2.6. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Capitals4243.75+0.25
Islanders5022.60−0.60

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 2:13 Hooking on the Islanders (Mathew Barzal): 2 minutes on the power play +3% WSH
P2 12:16 Tripping on the Islanders (Kyle Palmieri): 2 minutes on the power play +3% WSH
P2 1:17 Elbowing on the Capitals (Jakob Chychrun): 2 minutes on the power play 0% NYI
P3 16:34 Slashing on the Capitals (Matt Roy): 2 minutes on the power play +1% NYI
P3 15:32 Delaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Capitals (WSH): 2 minutes on the power play +3% NYI

When it happened

Islanders’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 54%. 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 Islanders were ahead in it, below while the Capitals were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 18:10 Martin Fehérváry scored on a backhand shot from 8 feetShooting · 8% chance +15% WSH –
2 P1 14:26 Aliaksei Protas snap, 16 ft: above crossbar (19% chance)Shooting +3% NYI –
3 P1 6:08 Aliaksei Protas scored on a snap shot from 30 feetShooting · 11% chance +14% WSH –
4 P1 2:13 Hooking on the Islanders (Mathew Barzal): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +3% WSH –
5 P2 12:16 Tripping on the Islanders (Kyle Palmieri): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +3% WSH –
6 P2 10:10 Ryan Leonard scored on a wrist shot from 42 feetShooting · 3% chance +9% WSH –
7 P3 15:32 Matthew Schaefer scored on a poke shot from 8 feetShooting · 13% chanceDelaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Capitals (WSH): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +8% NYI –
8 P3 14:50 Bo Horvat’s wrist shot from 19 feet was savedShooting · 17% chance +3% 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

Capitals 92% · Islanders 8%

Final margin
Capitals by 2
Luck in goals
0.7 for the Islanders
Luck-adjusted margin
Capitals by 2.7
Replay with same day's form
Capitals 67% · Islanders 33% 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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