luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · October 18, 2025

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

Islanders at Senators, Oct 18, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Islanders beat the Senators 5–4, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Islanders win 4 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 54 points of win probability to the Islanders.

The game turned on a luck play (P3, 14:00 left): Kyle Palmieri scored on a snap shot from 33 feet, worth 26 points of win probability to the Islanders. The biggest single swing (P3, 1:03 left): Anders Lee scored on a wrist shot from 11 feet.

Final

New York Islanders 5
Ottawa Senators 4

October 18, 2025 · Canadian Tire Centre

Luck index +56 Islanders lucky · −56 Senators

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. Islanders win 4, Senators win 6.

  1. 1 NYI 5 OTT 2
  2. 2 NYI 2 OTT 0
  3. 3 NYI 4 OTT 3
  4. 4 NYI 2 OTT 1
  5. 5 NYI 3 OTT 4
  6. 6 NYI 2 OTT 3
  7. 7 NYI 5 OTT 6
  8. 8 NYI 3 OTT 5
  9. 9 NYI 3 OTT 6
  10. 10 NYI 1 OTT 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 3,999.7 replays ended

Islanders win 44% of them, Senators 56%. The line is what actually happened: Islanders by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Islanders by 3+15.5%
Islanders by 28.8%
Islanders by 119.7%
Senators by 122.1%
Senators by 210.3%
Senators by 3+23.6%

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 +0.1 goals to the Islanders: the final margin was Islanders by 1, without the luck Islanders by 0.9. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Islanders3652.70+2.30
Senators4242.96+1.04

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 4:56 Holding on the Islanders (Emil Heineman): 2 minutes on the power play +4% OTT
P1 2:02 High sticking on the Senators (Nick Cousins): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYI
P1 1:31 Hooking on the Senators (Artem Zub): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NYI
P2 7:19 Delaying game bench on the Islanders (NYI): 2 minutes on the power play +5% OTT
P3 18:01 Tripping on the Senators (Fabian Zetterlund): 2 minutes on the power play +5% NYI

When it happened

Senators’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 87%. 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 Senators were ahead in it, below while the Islanders were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 2:59 David Perron scored on a snap shot from 35 feetShooting · 7% chance +17% OTT –
2 P2 14:28 Shane Pinto scored on a slap shot from 47 feetShooting · 3% chance +14% OTT –
3 P2 10:03 Bo Horvat scored on a snap shot from 19 feetShooting · 10% chance +19% NYI –
4 P2 3:14 Tim Stützle scored on a wrist shot from 23 feetShooting · 11% chance +21% OTT –
5 P2 2:15 Anders Lee scored on a deflected shot from 5 feetShooting · 12% chance +21% NYI –
6 P2 1:13 Dylan Cozens scored on a wrist shot from 24 feetShooting · 6% chance +23% OTT –
7 P3 14:00 The game turned hereKyle Palmieri scored on a snap shot from 33 feetShooting · 8% chance +26% NYI –
8 P3 1:03 Anders Lee scored on a wrist shot from 11 feetShooting · 12% chance +39% 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

Islanders 72% · Senators 28%

Final margin
Islanders by 1
Luck in goals
0.1 for the Islanders
Luck-adjusted margin
Islanders by 0.9
Replay with same day's form
Islanders 44% · Senators 56% 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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