luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · October 21, 2025 · OT

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

Avalanche at Mammoth, Oct 21, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Mammoth beat the Avalanche 4–3, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Mammoth win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: overtime alone was worth 49 points of win probability to the Mammoth.

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

Final (OT)

Colorado Avalanche 3
Utah Mammoth 4

October 21, 2025 · Delta Center

Luck index +49 Mammoth lucky · −49 Avalanche

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. Avalanche win 5, Mammoth win 5.

  1. 1 COL 6 UTA 2
  2. 2 COL 4 UTA 1
  3. 3 COL 2 UTA 0
  4. 4 COL 4 UTA 3
  5. 5 COL 4 UTA 3
  6. 6 COL 3 UTA 4
  7. 7 COL 1 UTA 2
  8. 8 COL 2 UTA 4
  9. 9 COL 3 UTA 6
  10. 10 COL 2 UTA 6

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 3,999.9 replays ended

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

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Avalanche by 3+19.5%
Avalanche by 210.1%
Avalanche by 119.8%
Mammoth by 121.2%
Mammoth by 29.5%
Mammoth by 3+20.0%

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 1, without the luck Mammoth by 0.1. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Avalanche4532.90+0.10
Mammoth4332.97+0.03

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 12:22 Hooking on the Avalanche (Jack Drury): 2 minutes on the power play +4% UTA
P2 11:11 Tripping on the Avalanche (Gavin Brindley): 2 minutes on the power play +4% UTA
P2 1:13 High sticking on the Mammoth (Dmitri Simashev): 2 minutes on the power play +5% COL

When it happened

Mammoth’ chance of winning

As low as 32% 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 Mammoth were ahead in it, below while the Avalanche were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 14:31 Cale Makar scored on a snap shot from 49 feetShooting · 4% chance +16% COL –
2 P2 10:43 Nick Schmaltz scored on a snap shot from 9 feetShooting · 26% chance +16% UTA –
3 P2 7:30 Lawson Crouse scored on a slap shot from 20 feetShooting · 19% chance +18% UTA –
4 P3 18:50 Jack Drury scored on a snap shot from 10 feetShooting · 15% chance +22% COL –
5 P3 14:40 Mikhail Sergachev scored on a snap shot from 41 feetShooting · 4% chance +27% UTA –
6 P3 6:45 Nathan MacKinnon’s tip from 9 feet was savedShooting · 9% chanceNathan MacKinnon’s snap shot from 8 feet was savedShooting · 25% chance +12% UTA –
7 P3 2:16 Martin Necas scored on a snap shot from 31 feetShooting · 3% chance +41% COL –
8 OT The Mammoth won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +49% 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

Avalanche 49% · Mammoth 51%

Final margin
Mammoth by 1
Luck in goals
0.9 for the Mammoth
Luck-adjusted margin
Mammoth by 0.1
Replay with same day's form
Avalanche 49% · Mammoth 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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