luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · October 14, 2025

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

Penguins at Ducks, Oct 14, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Ducks beat the Penguins 4–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Ducks win 6 of 10. Luck ran their way: shooting alone was worth 27 points of win probability to the Ducks.

The biggest swing (P3, 1:27 left): Chris Kreider scored on a snap shot from 18 feet, worth 34 points of win probability to the Ducks.

Final

Pittsburgh Penguins 3
Anaheim Ducks 4

October 14, 2025 · Honda Center

Luck index +41 Ducks lucky · −41 Penguins

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. Penguins win 4, Ducks win 6.

  1. 1 PIT 3 ANA 0
  2. 2 PIT 6 ANA 4
  3. 3 PIT 4 ANA 3
  4. 4 PIT 3 ANA 2
  5. 5 PIT 3 ANA 4
  6. 6 PIT 3 ANA 4
  7. 7 PIT 2 ANA 4
  8. 8 PIT 1 ANA 4
  9. 9 PIT 2 ANA 5
  10. 10 PIT 2 ANA 7

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

Penguins win 41% of them, Ducks 59%. The line is what actually happened: Ducks by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Penguins by 3+13.7%
Penguins by 28.3%
Penguins by 119.4%
Ducks by 121.3%
Ducks by 211.2%
Ducks by 3+26.1%

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 Ducks: the final margin was Ducks by 1, without the luck Ducks by 0.7. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Penguins3632.39+0.61
Ducks4342.94+1.06

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 16:34 Holding on the Penguins (Mathew Dumba): 2 minutes on the power play +4% ANA
P1 11:08 Hooking on the Penguins (Sidney Crosby): 2 minutes on the power play +3% ANA
P2 19:05 Slashing on the Penguins (Rickard Rakell): 2 minutes on the power play +4% ANA
P2 2:59 Delaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Ducks (ANA): 2 minutes on the power play +6% PIT
P3 16:42 High sticking on the Penguins (Erik Karlsson): 2 minutes on the power play +6% ANA
P3 1:34 Delaying game puck over glass on the Penguins (Parker Wotherspoon): 2 minutes on the power play +10% ANA
P3 0:12 Interference on the Penguins (Kris Letang): 2 minutes on the power play +6% ANA

When it happened

Ducks’ chance of winning

As low as 22% and as high as 100%. 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 Ducks were ahead in it, below while the Penguins were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 18:57 Justin Brazeau scored on a tip from 12 feetShooting · 7% chance +15% PIT –
2 P1 12:59 Rickard Rakell scored on a tip from 9 feetShooting · 9% chance +13% PIT –
3 P1 10:18 Chris Kreider scored on a tip from 7 feetShooting · 11% chance +13% ANA –
4 P1 0:35 Cutter Gauthier scored on a slap shot from 26 feetShooting · 10% chance +17% ANA –
5 P2 10:12 Drew Helleson scored on a slap shot from 61 feetShooting · 2% chance +21% ANA –
6 P2 2:59 Anthony Mantha scored on a wrist shot from 19 feetShooting · 16% chanceDelaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Ducks (ANA): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +25% PIT –
7 P3 1:34 Delaying game puck over glass on the Penguins (Parker Wotherspoon): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +10% ANA –
8 P3 1:27 Chris Kreider scored on a snap shot from 18 feetShooting · 21% chance +34% ANA –

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

Penguins 41% · Ducks 59%

Final margin
Ducks by 1
Luck in goals
0.3 for the Ducks
Luck-adjusted margin
Ducks by 0.7
Replay with same day's form
Penguins 41% · Ducks 59% 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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