luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

2025-26 regular season · October 25, 2025

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

Avalanche at Bruins, Oct 25, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Bruins beat the Avalanche 3–2, but the replays lean toward the Avalanche: they take 7 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: goaltending alone was worth 32 points of win probability to the Bruins.

The biggest swing (P1, 5:44 left): Viktor Arvidsson scored on a wrist shot from 6 feet, worth 17 points of win probability to the Bruins.

Final

Colorado Avalanche 2
Boston Bruins 3

October 25, 2025 · TD Garden

Luck index +69 Bruins very lucky · −69 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 7, Bruins win 3.

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

Avalanche win 69% of them, Bruins 31%. The line is what actually happened: Bruins by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Avalanche by 3+38.1%
Avalanche by 212.3%
Avalanche by 118.5%
Bruins by 119.0%
Bruins by 26.1%
Bruins by 3+6.1%

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 +1.8 goals to the Bruins: the final margin was Bruins by 1, without the luck Avalanche by 0.8. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Avalanche4923.75−1.75
Bruins3331.82+1.18

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 1:45 Holding the stick on the Avalanche (Gabriel Landeskog): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BOS
P2 17:25 Holding on the Avalanche (Ilya Solovyov): 2 minutes on the power play +4% BOS
P2 11:22 Slashing on the Bruins (Pavel Zacha): 2 minutes on the power play +4% COL
P2 6:33 Holding on the Bruins (Sean Kuraly): 2 minutes on the power play +4% COL
P3 17:27 Slashing on the Avalanche (Brent Burns): 2 minutes on the power play +2% BOS
P3 17:07 Roughing on the Bruins (Charlie McAvoy): 2 minutes on the power play +2% COL
P3 7:11 Tripping on the Avalanche (Brock Nelson): 2 minutes on the power play +2% BOS
P3 0:00 Cross checking on the Avalanche (Martin Necas): 2 minutes on the power play +6% BOS

When it happened

Bruins’ chance of winning

As low as 36% 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 Bruins were ahead in it, below while the Avalanche were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 15:34 Artturi Lehkonen scored on a snap shot from 12 feetShooting · 18% chance +13% COL –
2 P1 5:44 Viktor Arvidsson scored on a wrist shot from 6 feetShooting · 6% chance +17% BOS –
3 P1 5:05 Michael Eyssimont scored on a wrist shot from 15 feetShooting · 11% chance +16% BOS –
4 P2 11:22 Slashing on the Bruins (Pavel Zacha): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% COL –
5 P2 6:33 Holding on the Bruins (Sean Kuraly): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% COL –
6 P2 4:50 Gabriel Landeskog’s wrist shot from 9 feet was savedShooting · 20% chance +5% BOS –
7 P2 0:05 Morgan Geekie scored on a wrist shot from 5 feetShooting · 7% chance +14% BOS –
8 P3 0:00 Cross checking on the Avalanche (Martin Necas): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +6% BOS –

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 68% · Bruins 32%

Final margin
Bruins by 1
Luck in goals
1.8 for the Bruins
Luck-adjusted margin
Avalanche by 0.8
Replay with same day's form
Avalanche 69% · Bruins 31% 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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