luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · October 18, 2025 · OT

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

Wild at Flyers, Oct 18, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Flyers beat the Wild 2–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Flyers win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: overtime alone was worth 49 points of win probability to the Flyers.

The biggest swing (OT): the Flyers won in overtime, worth 49 points of win probability to the Flyers.

Final (OT)

Minnesota Wild 1
Philadelphia Flyers 2

October 18, 2025 · Xfinity Mobile Arena

Luck index +49 Flyers lucky · −49 Wild

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. Wild win 5, Flyers win 5.

  1. 1 MIN 6 PHI 3
  2. 2 MIN 4 PHI 1
  3. 3 MIN 4 PHI 2
  4. 4 MIN 1 PHI 0
  5. 5 MIN 3 PHI 2
  6. 6 MIN 2 PHI 3
  7. 7 MIN 2 PHI 3
  8. 8 MIN 1 PHI 2
  9. 9 MIN 1 PHI 4
  10. 10 MIN 0 PHI 4

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 4,000.3 replays ended

Wild win 49% of them, Flyers 51%. The line is what actually happened: Flyers by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Wild by 3+16.3%
Wild by 210.3%
Wild by 122.4%
Flyers by 124.3%
Flyers by 210.6%
Flyers by 3+16.1%

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 +1.0 goals to the Flyers: the final margin was Flyers by 1, without the luck even. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Wild3612.22−1.22
Flyers3412.14−1.14

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 1:53 Holding on the Wild (Jonas Brodin): 2 minutes on the power play +4% PHI
P2 18:05 Delaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Flyers (PHI): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MIN
P2 15:26 Tripping on the Flyers (Owen Tippett): 2 minutes on the power play +4% MIN
P2 0:08 Tripping on the Wild (Ryan Hartman): 2 minutes on the power play +5% PHI
P3 10:00 Hooking on the Flyers (Jamie Drysdale): 2 minutes on the power play +8% MIN

When it happened

Flyers’ chance of winning

As low as 24% 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 Flyers were ahead in it, below while the Wild were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P2 18:05 Vladimir Tarasenko scored on a snap shot from 31 feetShooting · 9% chanceDelaying game unsuccessful challenge on the Flyers (PHI): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +22% MIN –
2 P2 17:06 Matt Boldy’s wrist shot from 34 feet was savedShooting · 6% chanceKirill Kaprizov’s snap shot from 8 feet was savedShooting · 33% chance +6% PHI –
3 P2 0:08 Tripping on the Wild (Ryan Hartman): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +5% PHI –
4 P3 12:50 Owen Tippett scored on a backhand shot from 9 feetShooting · 2% chance +29% PHI –
5 P3 10:00 Hooking on the Flyers (Jamie Drysdale): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +7% MIN –
6 P3 8:55 Kirill Kaprizov missed the net with a wrist shot from 25 feetShooting · 16% chance +5% PHI –
7 P3 8:13 Ryan Hartman missed the net with a wrist shot from 14 feetShooting · 14% chance +5% PHI –
8 OT The Flyers won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +49% PHI –

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

Wild 51% · Flyers 49%

Final margin
Flyers by 1
Luck in goals
1.0 for the Flyers
Luck-adjusted margin
even
Replay with same day's form
Wild 49% · Flyers 51% 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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