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.

Oilers at Islanders, Oct 16, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Islanders beat the Oilers 4–2, but the replays lean toward the Oilers: they take 6 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 38 points of win probability to the Islanders.

The biggest swing (P3, 4:46 left): Bo Horvat scored on a snap shot from 22 feet, worth 31 points of win probability to the Islanders.

Final

Edmonton Oilers 2
New York Islanders 4

October 16, 2025 · UBS Arena

Luck index +61 Islanders very lucky · −61 Oilers

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. Oilers win 6, Islanders win 4.

  1. 1 EDM 6 NYI 1
  2. 2 EDM 3 NYI 0
  3. 3 EDM 6 NYI 3
  4. 4 EDM 4 NYI 2
  5. 5 EDM 4 NYI 3
  6. 6 EDM 7 NYI 6
  7. 7 EDM 4 NYI 5
  8. 8 EDM 3 NYI 4
  9. 9 EDM 2 NYI 4
  10. 10 EDM 2 NYI 5

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

Oilers win 61% of them, Islanders 39%. The line is what actually happened: Islanders by 2.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Oilers by 3+30.7%
Oilers by 210.8%
Oilers by 119.9%
Islanders by 120.8%
Islanders by 27.3%
Islanders by 3+10.5%

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 +1.4 goals to the Islanders: the final margin was Islanders by 2, without the luck Islanders by 0.6. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Oilers4823.89−1.89
Islanders4132.71+0.29

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 15:15 Tripping on the Islanders (Adam Pelech): 2 minutes on the power play +4% EDM
P1 14:57 Tripping on the Oilers (Connor McDavid): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYI
P1 2:40 Tripping on the Islanders (Scott Mayfield): 2 minutes on the power play +4% EDM
P2 8:46 Holding on the Oilers (David Tomasek): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYI
P2 2:59 Cross checking on the Islanders (Alexander Romanov): 2 minutes on the power play +5% EDM
P3 17:33 Interference on the Oilers (Mattias Ekholm): 2 minutes on the power play +6% NYI
P3 15:49 Hooking on the Islanders (Emil Heineman): 2 minutes on the power play +6% EDM
P3 8:42 Tripping on the Oilers (Troy Stecher): 2 minutes on the power play +8% NYI
P3 4:53 High sticking on the Oilers (Trent Frederic): 2 minutes on the power play +9% NYI

When it happened

Islanders’ chance of winning

As low as 28% 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 Islanders were ahead in it, below while the Oilers were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 3:37 Mathew Barzal scored on a wrist shot from 11 feetShooting · 14% chance +15% NYI –
2 P1 2:20 Leon Draisaitl scored on a snap shot from 14 feetShooting · 22% chance +14% EDM –
3 P2 11:07 Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scored on a snap shot from 31 feetShooting · 6% chance +20% EDM –
4 P2 2:04 Bo Horvat scored on a snap shot from 22 feetShooting · 20% chance +20% NYI –
5 P3 8:42 Tripping on the Oilers (Troy Stecher): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +8% NYI –
6 P3 4:53 High sticking on the Oilers (Trent Frederic): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +9% NYI –
7 P3 4:46 Bo Horvat scored on a snap shot from 22 feetShooting · 20% chance +31% NYI –
8 P3 1:21 Ryan Nugent-Hopkins missed the net with a slap shot from 14 feetShooting · 18% chance +8% NYI –

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

Oilers 36% · Islanders 64%

Final margin
Islanders by 2
Luck in goals
1.4 for the Islanders
Luck-adjusted margin
Islanders by 0.6
Replay with same day's form
Oilers 61% · Islanders 39% 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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