luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · October 23, 2025

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

Ducks at Bruins, Oct 23, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Ducks beat the Bruins 7–5, but the replays call it close to a coin flip: with the way both teams played, the Ducks win 4 of 10. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 59 points of win probability to the Ducks.

The game turned on a luck play (P3, 17:08 left): Mikael Granlund scored on a snap shot from 25 feet, worth 24 points of win probability to the Ducks. The biggest single swing (P3, 5:03 left): Morgan Geekie scored on a wrist shot from 26 feet.

Final

Anaheim Ducks 7
Boston Bruins 5

October 23, 2025 · TD Garden

Luck index +56 Ducks lucky · −56 Bruins

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. Ducks win 4, Bruins win 6.

  1. 1 ANA 6 BOS 2
  2. 2 ANA 5 BOS 2
  3. 3 ANA 5 BOS 3
  4. 4 ANA 5 BOS 4
  5. 5 ANA 2 BOS 3
  6. 6 ANA 4 BOS 5
  7. 7 ANA 2 BOS 4
  8. 8 ANA 3 BOS 6
  9. 9 ANA 2 BOS 5
  10. 10 ANA 4 BOS 9

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 replays ended

Ducks win 44% of them, Bruins 56%. The line is what actually happened: Ducks by 2.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Ducks by 3+16.4%
Ducks by 28.3%
Ducks by 118.9%
Bruins by 118.6%
Bruins by 29.9%
Bruins by 3+27.8%

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 +1.6 goals to the Ducks: the final margin was Ducks by 2, without the luck Ducks by 0.4. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Ducks4763.29+2.71
Bruins5653.76+1.24

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 5:31 Interference on the Bruins (Elias Lindholm): 2 minutes on the power play +4% ANA
P2 3:04 High sticking on the Ducks (Pavel Mintyukov): 2 minutes on the power play +5% BOS
P3 18:23 Tripping on the Bruins (Viktor Arvidsson): 2 minutes on the power play +6% ANA
P3 14:42 Interference on the Bruins (Charlie McAvoy): 2 minutes on the power play +5% ANA
P3 5:36 Delaying game puck over glass on the Ducks (Cutter Gauthier): 2 minutes on the power play +2% BOS

When it happened

Bruins’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 74%. 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 Bruins were ahead in it, below while the Ducks were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 11:54 Drew Helleson scored on a wrist shot from 22 feetShooting · 4% chance +16% ANA –
2 P2 11:11 Morgan Geekie scored on a wrist shot from 38 feetShooting · 6% chance +19% BOS –
3 P2 8:31 Cutter Gauthier scored on a wrist shot from 41 feetShooting · 4% chance +21% ANA –
4 P2 4:36 Jacob Trouba scored on a snap shot from 19 feetShooting · 10% chance +21% ANA –
5 P2 2:50 Mason Lohrei scored on a snap shot from 58 feetShooting · 2% chance +24% BOS –
6 P3 17:08 The game turned hereMikael Granlund scored on a snap shot from 25 feetShooting · 13% chance +24% ANA –
7 P3 5:03 Morgan Geekie scored on a wrist shot from 26 feetShooting · 11% chance +34% BOS –
8 P3 4:33 Troy Terry scored on a wrist shot from 7 feetShooting · 18% chance +32% ANA –

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

Ducks 55% · Bruins 45%

Final margin
Ducks by 2
Luck in goals
1.6 for the Ducks
Luck-adjusted margin
Ducks by 0.4
Replay with same day's form
Ducks 44% · Bruins 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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