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.

Golden Knights at Panthers, Oct 25, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Panthers beat the Golden Knights 3–0, and the replays lean their way: with the same day's form, they win 7 of 10.

The biggest swing (P1, 2:41 left): Sam Reinhart scored on a snap shot from 10 feet, worth 14 points of win probability to the Panthers.

Final

Vegas Golden Knights 0
Florida Panthers 3

October 25, 2025 · Amerant Bank Arena

Luck index +29 Panthers lucky · −29 Golden Knights

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. Golden Knights win 3, Panthers win 7.

  1. 1 VGK 3 FLA 0
  2. 2 VGK 4 FLA 3
  3. 3 VGK 4 FLA 3
  4. 4 VGK 3 FLA 4
  5. 5 VGK 2 FLA 3
  6. 6 VGK 2 FLA 4
  7. 7 VGK 0 FLA 3
  8. 8 VGK 0 FLA 3
  9. 9 VGK 1 FLA 5
  10. 10 VGK 0 FLA 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 3,999.8 replays ended

Golden Knights win 29% of them, Panthers 71%. The line is what actually happened: Panthers by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Golden Knights by 3+5.8%
Golden Knights by 25.2%
Golden Knights by 118.0%
Panthers by 120.8%
Panthers by 213.1%
Panthers by 3+37.0%

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 Panthers: the final margin was Panthers by 3, without the luck Panthers by 2.1. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Golden Knights3301.61−1.61
Panthers4333.42−0.42

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 19:28 Tripping on the Panthers (Brad Marchand): 2 minutes on the power play +4% VGK
P2 18:32 Tripping on the Golden Knights (Pavel Dorofeyev): 2 minutes on the power play +4% FLA
P2 8:38 Holding on the Golden Knights (Jeremy Lauzon): 2 minutes on the power play +4% FLA
P3 5:23 Roughing on the Panthers (Jonah Gadjovich): 2 minutes on the power play 0% VGK
P3 2:51 High sticking on the Golden Knights (Brett Howden): 2 minutes on the power play 0% FLA

When it happened

Panthers’ 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 Panthers were ahead in it, below while the Golden Knights were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 19:28 Tripping on the Panthers (Brad Marchand): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% VGK –
2 P1 3:15 Ivan Barbashev’s wrist shot from 7 feet was savedShooting · 19% chance +4% FLA –
3 P1 2:41 Sam Reinhart scored on a snap shot from 10 feetShooting · 24% chance +14% FLA –
4 P2 18:32 Tripping on the Golden Knights (Pavel Dorofeyev): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% FLA –
5 P2 8:43 Anton Lundell missed the net with a wrist shot from 5 feetShooting · 25% chance +4% VGK –
6 P2 8:38 Holding on the Golden Knights (Jeremy Lauzon): 2 minutes on the power playPenalty calls +4% FLA –
7 P3 16:34 A.J. Greer missed the net with a between-the-legs shot from 6 feetShooting · 33% chance +5% VGK –
8 P3 16:31 Cole Schwindt scored on a wrist shot from 5 feetShooting · 13% chance +13% FLA –

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

Golden Knights 8% · Panthers 92%

Final margin
Panthers by 3
Luck in goals
0.9 for the Panthers
Luck-adjusted margin
Panthers by 2.1
Replay with same day's form
Golden Knights 29% · Panthers 71% 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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