luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · October 17, 2025

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

Sharks at Mammoth, Oct 17, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Mammoth beat the Sharks 6–3, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 7 of 10. The Sharks had the bounces: goaltending alone was worth 10 points of win probability to the Sharks.

The biggest swing (P2, 3:51 left): Liam O'Brien scored on a backhand shot from 5 feet, worth 20 points of win probability to the Mammoth.

Final

San Jose Sharks 3
Utah Mammoth 6

October 17, 2025 · Delta Center

Luck index +25 Mammoth lucky · −25 Sharks

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. Sharks win 3, Mammoth win 7.

  1. 1 SJS 6 UTA 3
  2. 2 SJS 4 UTA 3
  3. 3 SJS 2 UTA 1
  4. 4 SJS 2 UTA 3
  5. 5 SJS 5 UTA 6
  6. 6 SJS 2 UTA 4
  7. 7 SJS 1 UTA 4
  8. 8 SJS 3 UTA 6
  9. 9 SJS 0 UTA 4
  10. 10 SJS 1 UTA 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 4,000.1 replays ended

Sharks win 25% of them, Mammoth 75%. The line is what actually happened: Mammoth by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Sharks by 3+4.7%
Sharks by 25.0%
Sharks by 115.3%
Mammoth by 116.5%
Mammoth by 212.8%
Mammoth by 3+45.6%

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 +0.9 goals to the Mammoth: the final margin was Mammoth by 3, without the luck Mammoth by 2.1. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Sharks2831.83+1.17
Mammoth4963.69+2.31

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 11:53 Tripping on the Sharks (Nick Leddy): 2 minutes on the power play +4% UTA
P1 10:53 Tripping on the Sharks (Dmitry Orlov): 2 minutes on the power play +4% UTA
P2 15:27 Interference on the Mammoth (Jack McBain): 2 minutes on the power play +3% SJS
P2 9:34 Holding on the Sharks (Dmitry Orlov): 2 minutes on the power play +5% UTA
P2 1:50 Too many men on the ice on the Sharks (SJS): 2 minutes on the power play +5% UTA
P3 13:06 Holding on the Mammoth (Logan Cooley): 2 minutes on the power play +1% SJS
P3 4:26 Cross checking on the Mammoth (Dylan Guenther): 2 minutes on the power play 0% SJS

When it happened

Mammoth’ 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 Mammoth were ahead in it, below while the Sharks were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 10:21 Nick Schmaltz scored on a snap shot from 17 feetShooting · 19% chance +13% UTA –
2 P1 6:29 Nick Schmaltz scored on a snap shot from 22 feetShooting · 15% chance +12% UTA –
3 P2 14:37 Tyler Toffoli scored on a snap shot from 14 feetShooting · 24% chance +11% SJS –
4 P2 12:47 Jeff Skinner scored on a backhand shot from 30 feetShooting · 1% chance +20% SJS –
5 P2 9:34 Holding on the Sharks (Dmitry Orlov): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% UTA –
6 P2 3:51 Liam O'Brien scored on a backhand shot from 5 feetShooting · 12% chance +20% UTA –
7 P3 19:06 Nick Schmaltz scored on a snap shot from 12 feetShooting · 17% chance +12% UTA –
8 P3 16:35 Michael Carcone scored on a snap shot from 28 feetShooting · 11% chance +5% UTA –

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

Sharks 10% · Mammoth 90%

Final margin
Mammoth by 3
Luck in goals
0.9 for the Mammoth
Luck-adjusted margin
Mammoth by 2.1
Replay with same day's form
Sharks 25% · Mammoth 75% 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.

All week 2 2025-26 games · Sharks · Mammoth

More from week 2, 2025-26

Every game of week 2, 2025-26