luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · October 16, 2025

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

Bruins at Golden Knights, Oct 16, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Golden Knights beat the Bruins 6–5, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 7 of 10. The Bruins had the bounces: goaltending alone was worth 16 points of win probability to the Bruins.

The biggest swing (P1, 3:16 left): Nikita Zadorov scored on a wrist shot from 68 feet, worth 18 points of win probability to the Bruins.

Final

Boston Bruins 5
Vegas Golden Knights 6

October 16, 2025 · T-Mobile Arena

Luck index +28 Golden Knights lucky · −28 Bruins

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. Bruins win 3, Golden Knights win 7.

  1. 1 BOS 4 VGK 1
  2. 2 BOS 3 VGK 2
  3. 3 BOS 5 VGK 4
  4. 4 BOS 1 VGK 2
  5. 5 BOS 4 VGK 6
  6. 6 BOS 2 VGK 5
  7. 7 BOS 2 VGK 5
  8. 8 BOS 1 VGK 5
  9. 9 BOS 1 VGK 6
  10. 10 BOS 0 VGK 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

Bruins win 28% of them, Golden Knights 72%. The line is what actually happened: Golden Knights by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Bruins by 3+6.5%
Bruins by 25.2%
Bruins by 115.9%
Golden Knights by 115.7%
Golden Knights by 210.4%
Golden Knights by 3+46.4%

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 +1.6 goals to the Bruins: the final margin was Golden Knights by 1, without the luck Golden Knights by 2.6. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Bruins4152.46+2.54
Golden Knights5164.45+1.55

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
P2 14:33 High sticking on the Bruins (Elias Lindholm): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VGK
P2 12:44 Holding on the Golden Knights (Jeremy Lauzon): 2 minutes on the power play +3% BOS
P2 9:34 Cross checking on the Bruins (Michael Eyssimont): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VGK
P2 9:03 High sticking double minor on the Bruins (Pavel Zacha): 4 minutes on the power play +8% VGK
P2 3:10 Interference on the Golden Knights (Kaedan Korczak): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BOS
P3 18:58 High sticking on the Bruins (Charlie McAvoy): 2 minutes on the power play +2% VGK
P3 10:46 Interference goalkeeper on the Golden Knights (Tomas Hertl): 2 minutes on the power play +5% BOS
P3 1:04 Interference on the Bruins (Morgan Geekie): 2 minutes on the power play +6% VGK

When it happened

Golden Knights’ chance of winning

As low as 35% 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 Golden Knights were ahead in it, below while the Bruins were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 17:55 Tanner Jeannot scored on a wrist shot from 5 feetShooting · 23% chance +12% BOS –
2 P1 16:25 Pavel Dorofeyev scored on a snap shot from 20 feetShooting · 21% chance +13% VGK –
3 P1 3:16 Nikita Zadorov scored on a wrist shot from 68 feetShooting · 1% chance +18% BOS –
4 P1 1:27 Cole Reinhardt scored on a wrist shot from 19 feetShooting · 14% chance +16% VGK –
5 P2 15:46 Jack Eichel scored on a wrist shot from 36 feetShooting · 6% chance +18% VGK –
6 P2 11:45 David Pastrnak scored on a wrist shot from 31 feetShooting · 10% chance +13% BOS –
7 P2 1:36 William Karlsson scored on a backhand shot from 8 feetShooting · 13% chance +13% VGK –
8 P3 14:48 Michael Eyssimont scored on a wrist shot from 42 feetShooting · 2% chance +14% BOS –

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

Bruins 8% · Golden Knights 92%

Final margin
Golden Knights by 1
Luck in goals
1.6 for the Bruins
Luck-adjusted margin
Golden Knights by 2.6
Replay with same day's form
Bruins 28% · Golden Knights 72% 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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