luckadjusted
NHL Week 1 · 2026-27

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

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

Avalanche at Devils, Oct 26, 2025: who deserved to win?

The Devils beat the Avalanche 4–3, but the replays lean toward the Avalanche: they take 6 of 10 with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: overtime alone was worth 49 points of win probability to the Devils.

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

Final (OT)

Colorado Avalanche 3
New Jersey Devils 4

October 26, 2025 · Prudential Center

Luck index +60 Devils very lucky · −60 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 6, Devils win 4.

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

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 4,000.1 replays ended

Avalanche win 60% of them, Devils 40%. The line is what actually happened: Devils by 1.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Avalanche by 3+27.8%
Avalanche by 212.0%
Avalanche by 120.3%
Devils by 121.1%
Devils by 27.5%
Devils by 3+11.2%

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 +1.7 goals to the Devils: the final margin was Devils by 1, without the luck Avalanche by 0.7. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each kind is luck).
ShootingUnblocked attemptsGoalsExpected goalsAbove expected
Avalanche4632.99+0.01
Devils3832.09+0.91

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
P2 12:32 Tripping on the Avalanche (Brock Nelson): 2 minutes on the power play +5% NJD
P2 11:34 High sticking on the Devils (Timo Meier): 2 minutes on the power play +5% COL
P2 6:04 Interference on the Devils (Luke Hughes): 2 minutes on the power play +4% COL

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 Avalanche were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 P1 10:51 Arseny Gritsyuk scored on a snap shot from 24 feetShooting · 10% chance +15% NJD –
2 P1 10:12 Jack Hughes scored on a wrist shot from 33 feetShooting · 4% chance +13% NJD –
3 P1 7:05 Valeri Nichushkin scored on a snap shot from 21 feetShooting · 18% chance +11% COL –
4 P1 2:57 Nathan MacKinnon scored on a snap shot from 11 feetShooting · 20% chance +14% COL –
5 P2 7:09 Connor Brown scored on a wrist shot from 21 feetShooting · 13% chance +19% NJD –
6 P3 6:05 Brock Nelson scored on a snap shot from 11 feetShooting · 21% chance +29% COL –
7 P3 3:29 Connor Brown’s wrist shot from 6 feet was savedShooting · 15% chance +6% COL –
8 OT The Devils won in overtimeOvertime · overtime is close to a coin flip +49% NJD –

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 65% · Devils 35%

Final margin
Devils by 1
Luck in goals
1.7 for the Devils
Luck-adjusted margin
Avalanche by 0.7
Replay with same day's form
Avalanche 60% · Devils 40% 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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