luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · October 13, 2025

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

Devils at Blue Jackets, Oct 13, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Devils beat the Blue Jackets 3–2, but the replays lean toward the Blue Jackets: they take 6 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 35 points of win probability to the Devils.

The biggest swing (P2, 8:51 left): Dawson Mercer scored on a slap shot from 26 feet, worth 18 points of win probability to the Devils.

Final

New Jersey Devils 3
Columbus Blue Jackets 2

October 13, 2025 · Nationwide Arena

Luck index +62 Devils very lucky · −62 Blue Jackets

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. Devils win 4, Blue Jackets win 6.

  1. 1 NJD 5 CBJ 2
  2. 2 NJD 2 CBJ 0
  3. 3 NJD 2 CBJ 1
  4. 4 NJD 2 CBJ 1
  5. 5 NJD 3 CBJ 4
  6. 6 NJD 2 CBJ 3
  7. 7 NJD 2 CBJ 4
  8. 8 NJD 0 CBJ 3
  9. 9 NJD 2 CBJ 5
  10. 10 NJD 1 CBJ 6

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

Devils win 38% of them, Blue Jackets 62%. The line is what actually happened: Devils by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Devils by 3+9.9%
Devils by 27.8%
Devils by 120.1%
Blue Jackets by 120.8%
Blue Jackets by 211.6%
Blue Jackets by 3+29.8%

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 +1.0 goals to the Devils: the final margin was Devils by 1, without the luck even. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Devils4122.21−0.21
Blue Jackets4923.45−1.45

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 13:52 High sticking double minor on the Devils (Dougie Hamilton): 4 minutes on the power play +8% CBJ
P1 7:42 Hooking on the Devils (Brett Pesce): 2 minutes on the power play +4% CBJ
P1 6:13 Hooking on the Blue Jackets (Adam Fantilli): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NJD
P2 10:47 Hooking on the Blue Jackets (Cole Sillinger): 2 minutes on the power play +5% NJD
P2 5:11 Hooking on the Devils (Simon Nemec): 2 minutes on the power play +5% CBJ
P3 15:18 Holding on the Devils (Arseny Gritsyuk): 2 minutes on the power play +5% CBJ

When it happened

Blue Jackets’ 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 Blue Jackets were ahead in it, below while the Devils were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 13:52 High sticking double minor on the Devils (Dougie Hamilton): 4 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +8% CBJ –
2 P1 4:13 Timo Meier scored on a wrist shot from 30 feetShooting · 5% chance +17% NJD –
3 P2 11:11 Kirill Marchenko scored on a wrist shot from 17 feetShooting · 16% chance +18% CBJ –
4 P2 10:47 Hooking on the Blue Jackets (Cole Sillinger): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% NJD –
5 P2 8:51 Dawson Mercer scored on a slap shot from 26 feetShooting · 16% chance +18% NJD –
6 P2 1:44 Kirill Marchenko’s snap shot from 18 feet was savedShooting · 19% chance +5% NJD –
7 P3 15:34 Adam Fantilli missed the net with a snap shot from 5 feetShooting · 22% chance +6% NJD –
8 P3 15:18 Holding on the Devils (Arseny Gritsyuk): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% CBJ –

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

Devils 49% · Blue Jackets 51%

Final margin
Devils by 1
Luck in goals
1.0 for the Devils
Luck-adjusted margin
even
Replay with same day's form
Devils 38% · Blue Jackets 62% 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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