luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · October 22, 2025

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

Wild at Devils, Oct 22, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Devils beat the Wild 4–1, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Devils win 5 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 32 points of win probability to the Devils.

The biggest swing (P1, 3:39 left): Paul Cotter scored on a wrist shot from 10 feet, worth 15 points of win probability to the Devils.

Final

Minnesota Wild 1
New Jersey Devils 4

October 22, 2025 · Prudential Center

Luck index +53 Devils lucky · −53 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, Devils win 5.

  1. 1 MIN 5 NJD 1
  2. 2 MIN 4 NJD 1
  3. 3 MIN 5 NJD 3
  4. 4 MIN 4 NJD 3
  5. 5 MIN 6 NJD 5
  6. 6 MIN 2 NJD 3
  7. 7 MIN 0 NJD 1
  8. 8 MIN 1 NJD 3
  9. 9 MIN 1 NJD 4
  10. 10 MIN 0 NJD 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 4,000.2 replays ended

Wild win 53% of them, Devils 47%. The line is what actually happened: Devils by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Wild by 3+23.3%
Wild by 210.0%
Wild by 119.9%
Devils by 120.4%
Devils by 29.1%
Devils by 3+17.3%

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 +2.5 goals to the Devils: the final margin was Devils by 3, without the luck Devils by 0.5. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Wild4413.40−2.40
Devils5032.86+0.14

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 17:48 Interference on the Wild (Marcus Foligno): 2 minutes on the power play +4% NJD
P2 8:39 Interference on the Devils (Brenden Dillon): 2 minutes on the power play +3% MIN
P2 3:46 Interference on the Devils (Luke Hughes): 2 minutes on the power play +3% MIN
P3 15:11 Slashing on the Wild (David Jiricek): 2 minutes on the power play +2% NJD
P3 4:08 Interference on the Devils (Luke Hughes): 2 minutes on the power play +1% MIN

When it happened

Devils’ 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 Devils were ahead in it, below while the Wild were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 17:48 Interference on the Wild (Marcus Foligno): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% NJD –
2 P1 14:22 Danila Yurov’s slap shot from 8 feet was savedShooting · 26% chance +4% NJD –
3 P1 3:39 Paul Cotter scored on a wrist shot from 10 feetShooting · 14% chance +15% NJD –
4 P2 15:11 Luke Hughes’s wrist shot from 6 feet was savedShooting · 20% chance +3% MIN –
5 P2 13:52 Brenden Dillon scored on a snap shot from 64 feetShooting · 1% chance +14% NJD –
6 P2 10:31 Matt Boldy’s snap shot from 5 feet was savedShooting · 31% chance +5% NJD –
7 P3 15:07 Arseny Gritsyuk scored on a snap shot from 33 feetShooting · 13% chance +4% NJD –
8 P3 9:23 Matt Boldy scored on a wrist shot from 29 feetShooting · 7% chance +3% MIN –

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 35% · Devils 65%

Final margin
Devils by 3
Luck in goals
2.5 for the Devils
Luck-adjusted margin
Devils by 0.5
Replay with same day's form
Wild 53% · Devils 47% 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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