luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · October 13, 2025 · SO

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

Kings at Wild, Oct 13, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Wild beat the Kings 4–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Wild win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: shootout alone was worth 51 points of win probability to the Wild.

The biggest swing (SO): the Wild won the shootout, worth 51 points of win probability to the Wild.

Final (SO)

Los Angeles Kings 3
Minnesota Wild 4

October 13, 2025 · Grand Casino Arena

Luck index +49 Wild lucky · −49 Kings

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. Kings win 5, Wild win 5.

  1. 1 LAK 4 MIN 1
  2. 2 LAK 6 MIN 3
  3. 3 LAK 2 MIN 0
  4. 4 LAK 2 MIN 1
  5. 5 LAK 3 MIN 2
  6. 6 LAK 2 MIN 3
  7. 7 LAK 4 MIN 5
  8. 8 LAK 0 MIN 2
  9. 9 LAK 1 MIN 4
  10. 10 LAK 2 MIN 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 3,999.8 replays ended

Kings win 49% of them, Wild 51%. The line is what actually happened: Wild by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Kings by 3+16.1%
Kings by 29.4%
Kings by 123.2%
Wild by 124.3%
Wild by 211.2%
Wild by 3+15.9%

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 +1.5 goals to the Wild: the final margin was Wild by 1, without the luck Kings by 0.5. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Kings4132.65+0.35
Wild3731.95+1.05

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 14:44 Interference on the Kings (Warren Foegele): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MIN
P1 7:46 Cross checking on the Kings (Andrei Kuzmenko): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MIN
P1 5:00 Delaying game puck over glass on the Kings (Quinton Byfield): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MIN
P1 4:42 Hooking on the Kings (Adrian Kempe): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MIN
P2 18:20 Holding on the Wild (Marcus Foligno): 2 minutes on the power play +1% LAK
P2 10:24 Tripping on the Kings (Alex Turcotte): 2 minutes on the power play +1% MIN
P3 14:39 Tripping on the Wild (Marcus Johansson): 2 minutes on the power play +2% LAK
P3 4:34 Hooking on the Kings (Adrian Kempe): 2 minutes on the power play +6% MIN
OT 1:25 Slashing on the Wild (Matt Boldy): 2 minutes on the power play +12% LAK

When it happened

Wild’ chance of winning

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 Wild were ahead in it, below while the Kings were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 5:56 Jared Spurgeon scored on a wrist shot from 43 feetShooting · 3% chance +17% MIN –
2 P1 3:47 Kirill Kaprizov scored on a wrist shot from 44 feetShooting · 5% chance +13% MIN –
3 P1 3:27 Matt Boldy scored on a wrist shot from 12 feetShooting · 6% chance +8% MIN –
4 P3 13:38 Quinton Byfield scored on a snap shot from 28 feetShooting · 16% chance +12% LAK –
5 P3 4:34 Hooking on the Kings (Adrian Kempe): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +6% MIN –
6 P3 0:46 Adrian Kempe scored on a snap shot from 21 feetShooting · 23% chance +35% LAK –
7 SO The Wild won the shootoutShootout · shootouts are close to coin flips +51% MIN –
8 OT 1:25 Slashing on the Wild (Matt Boldy): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +12% LAK –

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

Kings 63% · Wild 37%

Final margin
Wild by 1
Luck in goals
1.5 for the Wild
Luck-adjusted margin
Kings by 0.5
Replay with same day's form
Kings 49% · Wild 51% 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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